A knowledgebase is a technology used to store complex structured and/or unstructured information that may be used by a computing device (e.g., a knowledge-based system or expert system) to deduce new information. Knowledgebases often represent their stored information using an object model (sometimes called an “ontology”) with classes, subclasses, and instances. This ontology permits the representation of knowledge as a hierarchy of concepts with a particular domain, using a shared/controlled vocabulary to denote types, properties, and/or interrelationships associated with the information.
Some attempts have been made to develop knowledgebases in the areas of genetics and genomics. For instance, the Comprehensive Antibiotic Research Database (CARD), described in McArthur et al., “The Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database,” Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, vol. 57, pp. 3348-3357 (2013), includes data describing antibiotics and their targets along with antibiotic resistance genes, associated proteins, and antibiotic resistance literature. The CARD utilizes an Antibiotic Resistance Ontology (ARO) for the classification of antibiotic resistance gene data. Existing knowledgebases in the areas of genetics and genomics, however, have typically relied entirely on subject matter experts to manually construct the ontologies used by the knowledgebases.