1. ¹The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA
2. ²Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Correspondence: Dr John P Sundberg, The Jackson Laboratory, 600 Main Street, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609, USA. E-mail: john.sundberg@jax.org

Abstract

A recurring motto from the Tony Blair government in the UK was "Education, Education, Education." An appropriate exhortation for the biomedical sciences would be "Standardization, Standardization, Standardization." Inevitably, the two go hand in hand, and the challenge we face is how to encourage researchers to comply with existing or emerging standard terminologies and nomenclatures. This is both an educational and a regulatory task, one in which it is vital to succeed if we are to efficiently and accurately share and use the huge volume of data emerging in the biosciences.