Message from the Editor-in-Chief

The last quarter century has witnessed major advancements that have brought biomedical imaging to a paramount status in the life sciences. As a prominent example, the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineer-ing (NIBIB) was established in 2000 as the newest institute in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. Generally speaking, the scope of biomedical imaging covers data acquisition , image reconstruction, and image analysis, involving theories, methods, systems, and applications. While to-mographic and postprocessing techniques become increasingly sophisticated, traditional and emerging modalities play more and more critical roles in anatomical, functional, cellular , and molecular imaging. The overall goal of the International Journal of Biomedical Imaging (IJBI) is to promote research and development of biomedical imaging by publishing high-quality peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and tutorials in this rapidly growing interdisciplinary field. With the development of the field of biomedical imaging there are many reputable imaging meetings, including the IEEE and SPIE conferences. As a result, the number of high-quality conference papers is well beyond what the current imaging journals handle. In addition, there are new imaging areas that are not specifically targeted by the existing journals. In this context, it is our privilege to launch this new journal. Here I would like to articulate its unique features that justify our efforts, and promise its great potential. First, this journal will be published using an Open Access publishing model, which means that accepted papers will be freely and immediately available on the journal's web-site without any access barriers. In addition, a print edition will be made available at a minimal cost. It is our belief that the Open Access model will become a major force in scientific publishing in the near future, and we hope that IJBI will be a leading journal in this new movement. Second, this journal will promote both theoretical work and innovative techniques and applications. We value the importance of applied mathematics for biomedical imaging, so papers related to this area of research will be quite welcome. Applied mathematics is not only the use of existing mathematical tools in various applications, but also the formulation of mathematical challenges in contemporary research undertakings, as well as the development of new theories , methods, and techniques. In July 2005, Barni and Perez-Gonzalez proposed to push science into signal processing via rigorous experiments with refutation criteria [1]. Their arguments are quite applicable to the development of biomedical imaging. Furthermore, …