International Workshop on Vaccine and Drug Ontology Studies (VDOS)

Drugs and vaccines continue to be cornerstones in improving public health worldwide. The biomedical ontology community has tirelessly worked to refine health and clinical terminology systems, including lay medical terminologies, to encapsulate the complexities of drugs and vaccines. This year, we are extending our scope to include the pivotal role of artificial intelligence in advancing our understanding and application of drug and vaccine ontologies.

Our workshop will delve into innovative solutions and persisting challenges in developing and utilizing biomedical ontologies for the representation and analysis of drugs and vaccines. This encompasses their administration, immune responses, adverse events, and more. We aim to cover two primary domains: the ontology representation of drugs (including vaccines) and the practical applications of these ontologies in real-world scenarios, such as administration protocols and adverse event tracking. Topics will include drug components, administration specifics, immune responses, drug interactions, and adverse events across both research and clinical settings.

A significant addition to this year's workshop is the exploration of how artificial intelligence (AI) can revolutionize the field. AI offers unprecedented opportunities for literature mining, meta-analysis, and the interpretation of complex data sets, facilitating a deeper understanding of drug and vaccine interactions, adverse events, and more. This integration of AI into ontological studies represents a leap forward in our collective capability to manage and analyze biomedical information.

Despite notable advancements, the journey is far from over. We still face considerable challenges in achieving comprehensive and logical representations of drugs and vaccines and in leveraging ontologies to address research and clinical inquiries effectively. These challenges represent administration details, adverse events, drug interactions, the experimental analysis of immune responses, and overcoming time constraints.

By convening a diverse group of experts from clinical, research, and pharma-biotech backgrounds, this workshop will serve as a beacon for proposing and debating solutions to these ontological challenges. Our discussions will not only cover drug development and administration but will also pioneer the integration of AI technologies to enhance our methodologies and outcomes.

In essence, the role of drugs and vaccines in public health cannot be overstated, and through the collaborative efforts of the biomedical ontology community, significant strides have been made in their representation. The 13th VDOS workshop at ICBO 2024 will further this mission, addressing both enduring and emerging challenges in the ontology of drugs and vaccines, with a special emphasis on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence.