<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>The purpose of this document is to provide readers with a resource of different ongoing
standardization efforts within the ‘omics’ (genomic, proteomics, metabolomics)
and related communities, with particular focus on toxicological and environmental
applications. The review includes initiatives within the research community as well as
in the regulatory arena. It addresses data management issues (format and reporting
structures for the exchange of information) and database interoperability, highlighting
key objectives, target audience and participants. A considerable amount of work
still needs to be done and, ideally, collaboration should be optimized and duplication
and incompatibility should be avoided where possible. The consequence of failing to
deliver data standards is an escalation in the burden and cost of data management
tasks.</p>
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Comp Funct Genomics. 2004 Dec; 5(8):633-641