Nucleic Acids Research, 2010, Vol. 38, Web Server issue W159 Figure 4. Two screenshots of the OLS Dialog GUI component. The OLS Dialog allows Java application developers to seamlessly integrate OLS functionality in existing tools. Users can query the OLS by term name or ID. They can also locate terms by browsing an ontology and search the PSI-MOD ontology entries by term annotations speciﬁc to the ontology. In the left panel, a search on term names will also include partial matches and synonyms. In both cases, when a term is selected, the relevant associated metadata will be displayed and a graph similar to Figure 3 can be shown (not shown in these examples). ontology developers as the primary ontology browser (12, 13 as examples). When it went into production in mid-2005, the OLS was without peer. While it was true that each major ontology provider (GO, TAIR, FlyBase, Wormbase, etc.) generally provided its own website to browse their individual ontology, there was no uniﬁed resource to interactively and programmatically query multiple ontologies using a single, constant interface. Other services quickly followed suit and current systems that perform a similar function now include the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO) BioPortal (14) and the National Cancer Institute BioPortal (http://bioportal.nci.nih.gov/ncbo/faces/index .xhtml), which uses a scaled-down version of the NCBO BioPortal codebase. A continuous increase in the number and scope of ontologies and CVs made available, coupled with an enhanced data model and better cross-ontology support will ensure that the OLS keeps its place as a valuable tool for a broad segment of the scientiﬁc community. The development team and its collaborators are always trying to make it easier to integrate OLS functionality into other projects, and the release of the OLS Dialog will go a long way towards achieving this goal. Ontology developers who wish to make their ontology available to the OLS can do so easily and through a variety of means, thanks to a versatile and automated loading process. The OLS team is always looking for feedback to improve the project. Users are encouraged to contact pride-support@ebi.ac.uk for comments, problems and suggestions for new functionality. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank all users who have contributed recommendations and requests. Numerous improvements, already executed and some ongoing, come directly from this feedback. FUNDING The OLS is funded by the European Commission ‘Serving Life-science Information for the Next Generation’ (SLING), grant agreement number 226073 (Integrating Activity) within Research Infrastructures of the FP7. Formerly OLS was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) ISPIDER grant and European Union (EU) FP6 ‘Free European Life-science Information and Computational Services’ (FELICS) [contract number 021902 (RII3)] grants. Funding for open access charge: EU FP6 ‘Felics’ [contract number 021902 (RII3)]. Conﬂict of interest statement. None declared. REFERENCES 1. Rubin,D.L., Shah,N.H. and Noy,N.F. (2007) Biomedical ontologies: a functional perspective. Brief. Bioinformatics, 9, 75–90.