Scale and Time in Biological and Medical Imaging: the observation and integration paradigms

Abstract

Biological and medical imaging technologies have made impressive advances over the last decades. Some of their dimensions are health care driven (from screening, diagnosis assessment to therapy), others technology driven (bio-arrays, micro- to macro imaging) or biology driven (genes to proteins and cells). Computational modelling and information technology in biology and medicine is also becoming to have a major role in the interdisciplinary attempt to elucidate functions of living systems and structure-to function inter-relations. However, the recursion between description levels, at all space and time scales, for highly dynamical, interacting and complex systems, still requires new breakthroughs in observational tools closely coupled to sound information processing for confrontation to theoretical models.