Knowledge Graphs for the Life Sciences: Recent Developments, Challenges and Opportunities
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Abstract (arXiv)
The term life sciences refers to the disciplines that study living organisms and life processes, and include chemistry, biology, medicine, and a range of other related disciplines. Research efforts in life sciences are heavily data-driven, as they produce and consume vast amounts of scientific data, much of which is intrinsically relational and graph-structured. The volume of data and the complexity of scientific concepts and relations referred to therein promote the application of advanced knowledge-driven technologies for managing and interpreting data, with the ultimate aim to advance scientific discovery. In this survey and position paper, we discuss recent developments and advances in the use of graph-based technologies in life sciences and set out a vision for how these technologies will impact these fields into the future. We focus on three broad topics: the construction and management of Knowledge Graphs (KGs), the use of KGs and associated technologies in the discovery of new knowledge, and the use of KGs in artificial intelligence applications to support explanations (explainable AI). We select a few exemplary use cases for each topic, discuss the challenges and open research questions within these topics, and conclude with a perspective and outlook that summarizes the overarching challenges and their potential solutions as a guide for future research.
Key facts. Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 55 of its 212 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Sep 2023.
Builds on
55 of 212 references.
References · 55
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38 more
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50 most cited of 55 All 55 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2023: 1; 2024: 5; 2025: 1; 2026: 3.
10 papers.
- 2023RNA-KG: An ontology-based knowledge graph for representing interactions involving RNA moleculescited by 5
- 2024Toward Relieving Clinician Burden by Automatically Generating Progress Notes using Interim Hospital Datacited by 4
- 2024A Language Model based Framework for New Concept Placement in Ontologiescited by 3
- 2026The AnIML Ontology: Enabling Semantic Interoperability for Large-Scale Experimental Data in Interconnected Scientific Labscited by 3
- 2025Exploring a Large Language Model for Transforming Taxonomic Data into OWL: Lessons Learned and Implications for Ontology Developmentcited by 1
- 2026Link Prediction or Perdition: the Seeds of Instability in Knowledge Graph Embeddingscited by 1
- 2024Evaluating Class Membership Relations in Knowledge Graphs using Large Language Modelscited by 0
- 2024Repairing Networks of EL_perp Ontologies using Weakening and Completing -- Extended versioncited by 0
- 2024KGPrune: a Web Application to Extract Subgraphs of Interest from Wikidata with Analogical Pruningcited by 0
- 2026Distilling and Adapting: A Topology-Aware Framework for Zero-Shot Interaction Prediction in Multiplex Biological Networkscited by 0
- 2026Link Prediction or Perdition: the Seeds of Instability in Knowledge Graph Embeddings2 Jun 2026
- 2026The AnIML Ontology: Enabling Semantic Interoperability for Large-Scale Experimental Data in Interconnected Scientific Labs2 Apr 2026
- 2026Distilling and Adapting: A Topology-Aware Framework for Zero-Shot Interaction Prediction in Multiplex Biological Networks20 Feb 2026
- 2025Exploring a Large Language Model for Transforming Taxonomic Data into OWL: Lessons Learned and Implications for Ontology Development25 Apr 2025
- 2024Toward Relieving Clinician Burden by Automatically Generating Progress Notes using Interim Hospital Data10 Oct 2024
- 2024KGPrune: a Web Application to Extract Subgraphs of Interest from Wikidata with Analogical Pruning26 Aug 2024
- 2024Repairing Networks of EL_perp Ontologies using Weakening and Completing -- Extended version26 Jul 2024
- 2024Evaluating Class Membership Relations in Knowledge Graphs using Large Language Models25 Apr 2024
- 2024A Language Model based Framework for New Concept Placement in Ontologies27 Feb 2024
- 2023RNA-KG: An ontology-based knowledge graph for representing interactions involving RNA molecules30 Nov 2023