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Review

Nature Reviews Genetics 7, 593–605 (1 August 2006) | doi:10.1038/nrg1922

Standards for systems biology

Alvis Brazma , Maria Krestyaninova & Ugis Sarkans

High-throughput technologies are generating large amounts of complex data that have to be stored in databases, communicated to various data analysis tools and interpreted by scientists. Data representation and communication standards are needed to implement these steps efficiently. Here we give a classification of various standards related to systems biology and discuss various aspects of standardization in life sciences in general. Why are some standards more successful than others, what are the prerequisites for a standard to succeed and what are the possible pitfalls?