BSBiological Secure
Methodology · The engine behind the standard

Atlas Engine

The referenced biological knowledge graph behind every Biological Secure™ assessment.

Atlas does not decide whether a product is acceptable. It traces, from a product's declared composition, which biological pathways are documented in the scientific literature — and attaches an evidence level and a source to every connection. What is verifiable goes into the assessment; what is not is reported as exactly that.

01

One chain, end to end.

Every ingredient or compound is followed along the same documented path — from the substance to the physiological system it has been reported to touch.

02

The graph, alive.

A live slice of Atlas: documented agent → hormone associations, each carrying its evidence level and source, connected to where the hormone is expressed and the physiological axis it belongs to. Drag a node, or hover to trace its links.

Hover or tap any node to trace its documented connections — agents, hormones, tissues and axes.

Agent Hormone Tissue Axis
Reading the graph honestly: solid edges are documented agent→hormone associations (with evidence level). Dashed edges mark where the affected hormone is produced or received across the body — an expression locus, not a claim that the agent acts there. A "no effect" edge is shown as a flat, neutral link: Atlas records high-evidence negatives too.
03

What's inside Atlas.

The graph is built on curated, version-tracked biological data. The figures below describe the current knowledge base, not a marketing estimate.

204
Hormones & signalling molecules
388
Endocrine genes (hormones + receptors)
93,063
Hormone–cell expression mappings
810
Cell types across 45 tissues
15,459
Signalling edges
332
Food additives inventoried
171
Underlying studies & sources
4
Referenced clinical layers: biomarkers · drugs · diseases · variants
04

Built on referenced science —
and we record where it came from.

Atlas integrates established public biological resources with curated, literature-referenced links. Each ingested dataset is recorded with its origin, row count and a content hash, so the provenance of every layer can be checked.

Base layer

Hormone Cell Atlas (HRdb)

Hormones, endocrine genes, producing and receiving cell definitions, steroidogenesis and metabolism.

Single-cell

Celltypist · Sanger

Cell-type inventories and hormone–cell expression strengths across tissues.

Proteins

UniProt · Guide to PHARMACOLOGY

Protein annotation and receptor / target family classification.

Clinical

ClinVar · GWAS Catalog

Referenced genetic associations underpinning the clinical variant layer.

Curated

Literature-referenced links

Agent–hormone associations, each tagged with study type, population, limitations and a PMID / DOI.

Provenance, by design.  Atlas keeps a per-table record of source URL, row count and content hash — the same discipline GOVP applies to the final certificate, applied to the knowledge base itself.
05

Every link is graded.
So is every rejection.

Evidence travels with the link

No association is stored as a bare fact. Each carries the strength of the evidence behind it, mapped to the public Biological Secure™ scale:

E0 — no evidence identified
E1 — in vitro
E2 — animal
E3 — observational human
E4 — clinical trial
E5 — meta-analysis / consensus

What Atlas rejected, and why

Atlas keeps a negative audit trail: associations it considered and excluded are stored with their reason, not silently dropped.

It also reports absence honestly. Of 332 inventoried additives, the large majority return no documented hormonal evidence — and Atlas states exactly that, rather than implying a verdict. Absence of identified evidence is reported as absence, never as approval.

06

An engine with the same edges
as the standard.

What Atlas does

  • + Traces documented biological pathways from a declared composition
  • + Attaches an evidence level and a source to each connection
  • + Records what it considered and excluded
  • + Produces a structured, reproducible input for the assessment

What Atlas does not do

  • Diagnose, or provide medical or genetic advice
  • Establish causation from a documented association
  • Determine that a product is safe or acceptable
  • Replace the judgement of a qualified professional
07

Atlas analyses.
GOVP makes it verifiable.

Atlas is the analytical layer — never the final word. Its output is graded and then sealed into a GOVP record, so the result is not "trust the engine" but "verify the record."

Composition Atlas analysis Evidence grading GOVP record
See how verification works →