My research focuses on comparative phenotype analysis and bioinformatics. I develop systems to integrate and analyze phenotypic information in the context of the genetics and genomics data of the laboratory mouse within the Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI) project. I am primary developer of the Mammalian Phenotype Ontology (MP), a controlled, structured vocabulary to annotate phenotype data, enabling data integration, analysis and computational reasoning. My current research projects include developing ontological relationships among other human and model organism phenotype ontologies and database knowledge systems to develop comparative analysis tools. These tools will be used to analyze congenital defects and pathological processes with the objective of discovering new molecular elements and pathways that contribute to disease states.
