Cellosaurus Terminology

**Semantic type:** Intellectual Product

**Definition:** Cellosaurus is a knowledge resource on cell lines. It attempts to describe all cell lines used in biomedical research. It includes immortalized cell lines; naturally immortal cell lines (such as stem cell lines); finite life cell lines when those are distributed and used widely. It encompasses vertebrate cell lines, with an emphasis on human, mouse and rat cell lines, and invertebrate (insects and ticks) cell lines. The Cellosaurus Terminology comprises two subsets: The Cellosaurus Disease Terminology and the Cellosaurus Resistance and Transformant Physical Factor Terminology. The Cellosaurus Disease Terminology is a set of terms used to annotate cell lines originating from a diseased patient or animal. For inherited diseases, the relevant terms are only applied to cell lines originating from individuals suffering or at risk for a disease and not for individuals that are carriers for such disease. For cancers, the relevant terms are only applied to cell lines established from a cancerous tissue. The Cellosaurus Resistance and Transformant Physical Factor Terminology is a set of physical factors, which may be causative or a treatment for diseases within the domain of Cellosaurus. The Cellosaurus is developed by Dr. Amos Bairoch of the CALIPHO group at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics.