The purpose of the national FaceBase consortium is to systemically acquire and integrate multiple forms of data in order to facilitate a systems level understanding of the causes and possible treatments for craniofacial abnormalities. A basic component of any such data integration effort is a controlled set of terms or keywords that can be associated with the data through data annotation, so that diverse data can be related via common terms.

Craniofacial abnormalities occur in over half of all congenital malformations. To understand the genetic basis for these disorders requires precise yet detailed phenotypic and genotypic data from multiple sources. Recognizing this problem the NIDCR in 2008 sponsored the creation of the FaceBase Consortium, whose purpose is to systemically acquire and integrate multiple forms of data in order to facilitate a systems level understanding of the causes and possible treatments for craniofacial abnormalities.