The MIACA initiative on Minimum Information About a Cellular Assay develops guidelines for the description of experiments and data from cell-based assays.
Advances in genomics and functional genomics have enabled large scale analysis of gene and protein function by means of high throughput cell biology. Cells are perturbed in vitro and induced effects are recorded and analyzed. Perturbations can be in several genres and induced by molecular agents (e.g. siRNAs, expression constructs, small chemical compounds), numerous other stress conditions (e.g. temperature shift, serum starvation), or in combinations. The MIACA initiative develops a minimum information checklist that shall describe the data and the processes involved in their collection and interpretation, a Cellular Assay Object Model (CA-OM) that is modular and capable to cover (m)any cellular assays, and a Cellular Assay Markup Language (CA-ML) that serves as data exchange format.
No public database exists presently that would take and disseminate data from cellular assays, and deliver information on how the data was collected, processed, and interpreted. The MIACA guideline will provide the basis for genome wide data integration from screening results having been generated in various laboratories, and will enable researchers to address the functional interconnectivities between different cellular processes. MIACA is open for new contributors, please go to http://miaca.sourceforge.net/ for more information.