A considerable amount of data on biomaterials associated infections (BAIs) exists. The comparative evaluation of different types of materials and coatings requires bioinformatics workflows for the objective and automated data quantification to enable systematic studies on the underlying antimicrobial mechanisms. However, the standardization of operating procedures for data acquisition and analysis is often deficient, and the same applies to information standards on experimental and simulated data. Consequently, computer-aided data handling is still in its infancy, and the lack of standardization has been identified as a major obstacle of progress in this multidisciplinary research field. 

We aim to overcome these obstacles by standardizing the computational analysis, integration and handling of experimental and simulated data suitable for in vitro situations and transferable to in vivo and clinical situations. This will be achieved by (i) developing a minimal information standard for the relevant data and implementing it in a semantic knowledge base and (ii) implementing automated analysis workflows for the objective quantification of image data generated for the comparative evaluation of BAIs.

One important source of data is imaging. Therefore, our focus will as well be on the implementation of automated analysis workflows for the objective quantification of image data that will be generated for the comparative evaluation of various types of materials and coatings.