[Data-modeling] Hormone type in the Medicine domain

[Faye Li]

Thanks -- that was one of the things that confused me. Hormone receptors 
were defined as proteins on most online sources I consulted, but I was 
influenced in the opposite direction by the existing Gene type and 
instances in the Biology domain and the muddy use of both terms in 
Wikipedia. Sounds like using Protein (again, in Biology) as an included 
type would make sense here.

The point of the explicit naming of "Human" in front of "Hormone" is to 
drive home the fact that the Medicine domain will be limited to the 
scope of human instead of encompassing plant or animal. It doesn't mean 
that these hormones are limited to the human species; it does mean, 
however, that hormones that don't apply to humans shouldn't be added to 
this type -- a situation that's been happening with the Disease type 
that I'd like to avoid. Hormone will be linked to Disease, which has 
properties like causes and treatments, both of which can be very 
different depending on the species of the patient. These and other 
things I want to model require that the reciprocating type be Human Hormone.

I could, however, create a separate type of Hormone (perhaps best in the 
Biology domain) for all hormones in the world (and add Human Hormone as 
an included type). Would that be an acceptable solution to you?

-- Faye


Brian Karlak wrote:
>
> On Apr 15, 2008, at 5:07 PM, Faye Li wrote:
>> Also, is a Hormone Receptor always or pretty much always a Gene? We have 
>> a Gene type in the Biology domain that I'd be more than happy to add as 
>> an Included Type if it makes sense. Medical review of the type and 
>> property names would also be appreciated.
>
> Hi Faye --
>
> Hormone Receptors are all proteins, which in turn are encoded for by 
> genes.  However, the distinction is often blurred in common usage 
> since there is a rough one-to-one correspondence between a gene and 
> and its protein product.  Furthermore, genes often share the same name 
> as their protein product.
>
> Even though common usage often confuses the two concepts, it would 
> probably be incorrect to cotype all Hormone Receptors as Genes.  It 
> would be more correct to cotype them as Proteins.
>
> Unfortunately, it seems that Wikipedia usually confuses the two 
> concepts in their articles.  For instance, the A2a Receptor 
> <http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006bd15e1> blurb 
> starts with:
>
>     The adenosine A receptor, also known as ADORA2A, is an adenosine
>     receptor, but also denotes the human gene encoding it. 
>
>
> It appears that we have continued this conflation of Gene and Protein 
> in freebase.  I see instances where we (automatically) type these 
> entries as a Gene.  This irks the bio geek in me.  For common use this 
> will work, but any biological application that tries to use this info 
> will get tangled up pretty quick.
>
> Because of this, I'd recommend against the automatic cotyping of 
> Hormone Receptor with Gene, unless we're comfortable propagating this 
> issue.
>
> One final suggestion: you should probably name your type "Hormone", 
> instead of "Human Hormone".  Most (if not all) of your entries are 
> hormones in a wide variety of species.  Dogs, mice and deer all 
> produce prolactin and insulin, all for pretty much the same purpose.
>
> Brian 
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Data-modeling mailing list
> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
>