Calls for papers

 

International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design

 

Special Issue on: "Bioimaging Informatics"

Guest Editors:
Tianming Liu, University of Georgia, USA
Fuhui Long, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA

In recent years, microscopic bioimaging has played an increasingly vital role in many biological research studies such as pathway analysis, target identification, drug discovery and systems biology. Driven by these applications, computerised analysis of bioimages has been actively studied in recent years.

In general, bioimaging applications are very diverse. Differences in the underlying biological questions, species, tissue types, cell types, imaging equipments or imaging parameters all contribute to the diversity of bioimage informatics.

Due to this tremendous diversity, there is no single algorithm or computational pipeline that can be used to solve all bioimage computing problems. Biological experiments are now generating a tremendous amount of bioimage data with high complexity and multiple scales. Computerised extraction and quantitative characterisation of the most relevant biological information from these bioimages can become a bottleneck of scientific discovery.

Despite tremendous progress in the development of computational algorithms and software tools from the bioimaging informatics community in recent years, there are still many issues that need to be addressed urgently and adequately. For instance, bioimaging informatics software systems that are capable of adding new data analysis and management capabilities quickly and easily are much needed, and software tools with user-friendly interfaces that are accessible to average biologists without confining their full power to more experienced users are also in urgent need.

This special issue aims to take a snapshot of recent efforts in the development of computational algorithms and software tools from the bioimaging informatics community, in order to address the major challenges in the fast-growing field of bioimaging. We hope that the issue will facilitate development, validation and dissemination of novel methodologies and applications in the bioimaging informatics field.

Subject Coverage
Topics include but are not limited to:

• Novel algorithms for bioimage segmentation, registration, shape analysis, tracking and object quantification
• High-content or high-throughput phenotype screening through bioimage analysis
• Software tools for bioimage management and visualisation
• Open source software architecture and systems design
• Novel hardware and applicants, e.g. iPad-based bioimage informatics
• Validation methodology for algorithms and software systems
• Benchmark datasets and algorithm evaluation
• Novel applications, e.g. zebrafish screening for biomarker discovery

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper was not originally copyrighted and if it has been completely re-written).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 1 July, 2011

Notification of acceptance: 1 September, 2011