Model biomedical research is data-intensive. The post-genomics era has brought up a proliferation in data, databases, and an exponential growth in published literature. Researchers must now assimilate and integrate an ever increasing amount of diverse information to do their research. Computers have been used to help researchers to manage the information explosion. Ontologies are able to structure complex biomedical doamins and relate the myriad of data to shared understanding of biomedicine. The most successful ontology is the Gene Ontology (GO), which has been widely used in various GO-based applications, such as gene expression data analysis and literature mining. Its importance can be demonstrated by approximately 2,000 peer-revieweed publications out of a direct search of "Gene Ontology" in PubMed.

     To ensure consistent representation of vaccine knowledge and to support automated reasoning, a community-based effort to develop the Vaccine Ontology (VO) has been initiated. This international Vaccine Ontology development effort has involved in many institutes, disciplines, and different countries. The Vaccine Ontology has also been used in a variety of applications by many user groups in academia and vaccine industry.

     This site currently include the following components:

• Introduction: Introduction of biomedical ontologies, the Vaccine Ontology, and their applications.
• Statistics: Statistics of most updated Vaccine Ontology.
• VO News: Documentation of Vaccine Ontology-related news.
• VO Development Team: Introduction of the international, multiple-institute, and multidiscipline Vaccine Ontology development team.
• VO Users: Vaccine Ontology user case studies and user groups. The Vaccine Ontology can not only be used for representation of vaccine terms and their relationships, but also be used in various applications, inclusing vaccine data analysis, literature mining, and network prediction, and so on.
• VOBrowser: Search and browse Vaccine Ontology terms and relationships.
• VO Download: Download the most updated Vaccine Ontology OWL format.
• FAQs: Frequently asked questions related to the Vaccine Ontology.
• Links: Useful links.
• Contact Us: Information how to contact us, and a web form for direct input of your feedback.
• VO in VIOLIN: Introduction of the development and applications of the Vaccine Ontology in the VIOLIN project (Vaccine Investigation and Online Information Network).

     The successful development and applications of the Vaccine Ontology are not easy tasks, and we just started. Its success requires determination and intelligent work. Support from the broad vaccine research and development community is more than welcome.