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Create a Subject object

Source: R/constructors.R
subject_new.Rd

Constructs a Subject object representing an individual animal or biological sample in a study. Subjects must have a unique identifier and a species. All other attributes are optional.

Usage

subject_new(
  subject_id,
  species,
  sex = NA_character_,
  strain = NA_character_,
  genotype = NA_character_,
  cohort = NA_character_,
  timepoint = NA_character_,
  notes = NA_character_
)

Arguments

subject_id

Character scalar providing a unique identifier for the subject. Must be at least 1 character long.

species

Character scalar naming the species (e.g., "rat", "mouse", "human", "zebrafish"). Any value is allowed; it is stored lower-cased so that "Rat" and "rat" are the same species. Required.

sex

Character scalar indicating biological sex (e.g., "M", "F"). Optional and defaults to NA.

strain

Character scalar for strain or breed designation. Optional and defaults to NA.

genotype

Character scalar describing the genetic background or modification (e.g., "WT", "KO"). Optional and defaults to NA.

cohort

Character scalar for cohort membership or treatment group. Optional and defaults to NA.

timepoint

Character scalar indicating study timepoint or collection date. Optional and defaults to NA.

notes

Character scalar for additional metadata or observations. Optional and defaults to NA.

Value

A Subject object with the species stored lower-cased.

Details

Subject objects are S7 classes for storing individual-level metadata in cross-species studies. The design is species-agnostic: species is a free-form value, lower-cased so that a study can group subjects by species without also matching on case. Individual subjects are typically read from a Cohort with subject().

See also

Cohort for managing groups of subjects

Examples

# Create a rat subject
rat_subject <- subject_new(
  subject_id = "RAT001",
  species = "rat",
  sex = "M",
  strain = "Lewis",
  genotype = "WT",
  cohort = "Control"
)
print(rat_subject)
#> Subject <RAT001>: rat 

# Create a mouse subject
mouse_subject <- subject_new(
  subject_id = "MOUSE001",
  species = "mouse",
  sex = "F",
  strain = "C57BL/6",
  genotype = "KO"
)
print(mouse_subject)
#> Subject <MOUSE001>: mouse