Following a successful application to the RDA Europe 4.0 open call for Adoption Grants, the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI) at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski started working on unifying the knowledge concerned with the study of wheat and the factors affecting the health and viability of the cereal.
Currently, there exists a number of sources of information and vast amounts of wheat-related research data; these include the US National Centre for Biotechnical Information, the European Bioinformatics Institute, and the Fusarium ID database. However, the lack of interoperability between the various resources is hindering the ability of researchers to take full advantage of the data available.
The main goal of the FMI project is to develop a model for semantic interoperability which will integrate the data from the existing resources. Specifically, the focus will be on research on Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), a fungal disease affecting cereals which causes an accumulation of mycotoxins in the head of the crop. This can affect not only the grain quality and crop yields, but also cause toxicosis in animals and livestock if contaminated food items are ingested. Using the Wheat Data Interoperability Guidelines, Ontologies and User Cases Output from the Wheat Data Interoperability Working Group, Dr Dimitar Vassilev and his colleagues at Sofia University will set out a model for a platform that will integrate all freely accessible information resources concerning relations between wheat and FHB, with the aim of preventing instances of this disease.
An update on the adoption project is given in this blog. During the the RDA Global Adoption week 2020 Dimitar Vassilev (Sofia University) presented the A Model Of Data Integration Related To Wheat Genetic Resources And Resistance To Fusarium Head Blight. The Slides and the recorded presentation are linked below.
| Country of the organisation | Bulgaria |
| WG the adoption story relates to: | Wheat Data Interoperability WG |
| Stakeholder Classification of your organisation: | Academia & Research |
| Funding sources: | RDA Europe Adoption Grant |
| RDA ouput(s) adopted: | Wheat Data Interoperability Recommendations |