How Computers are seen in Biology and Medicine

Computers in Biology and Medicine is a medium of international communication of the revolutionary advances being made in the application of the computer to the fields of bioscience and medicine. The Journal encourages the exchange of important research, instruction, ideas and information on all ...

Computers in Biology and Medicine is a medium of international communication of the revolutionary advances being made in the application of the computer to the fields of bioscience and medicine. The Journal encourages the exchange of important research, instruction, ideas and information on all aspects of the rapidly expanding area of computer usage in these fields.

The Journal will focus on such areas as
(1) Analysis of Biomedical Systems: Solutions of Equations;
(2) Synthesis of Biomedical Systems: Simulations;
(3) Special Medical Data Processing Methods;
(4) Special Purpose Computers and Clinical Data Processing for Real Time, Clinical and Experimental Use; and
(5) Medical Diagnosis and Medical Record Processing. Also included are the fields of
(6) Biomedical Engineering; and
(7) Medical Informatics as well as Bioinformatics. The journal is expanding to include
(8) Medical Applications of the Internet and World Wide Web;
(9) Human Genomics;
(10) Proteomics; and
(11) Functional Brain Studies.

The publication policy is to publish
(1) new, original articles that have been appropriately reviewed by competent scientific people, (2) surveys of developments in the fields,
(3) pedagogical papers covering specific areas of interest, and
(4) book reviews pertinent to the field.

Articles which examine the following topics of special interest are being featured in Computers in Biology and Medicine: computer aids to the analysis of biochemical systems, computer aids to biocontrol-systems engineering, neuronal simulation by digital-computer gating components, automatic computer analysis of pictures of biological and medical importance, use of computers by commercial pharmaceutical and chemical organizations, radiation-dosage computers, and accumulating and recalling individual medical records, real-time languages, interfaces to patient monitors, clinical chemistry equipment, data handling and display in nuclear medicine and therapy.

The applications of computers to biological and biomedical problem solving go back to the very beginnings of computer science, automata theory [1], and mathematical biology [2]. With the advent of more versatile and powerful computers, biological and biomedical applications of computers have proliferated so rapidly that it would be virtually impossible to compile a comprehensive review of all developments in this field. Limitations of computer simulations in biology have also come under close scrutiny, and claims have been made that biological systems have limited information processing power [3]. Such general conjectures do not, however, deter biologists and biomedical researchers from developing new computer applications in biology and medicine. Microprocessors are being widely employed in biological laboratories both for automatic data acquisition/processing and modeling; one particular area, which is of great biomedical interest, involves fast digital image processing and is already established for routine clinical examinations in radiological and nuclear medicine centers, Powerful techniques for biological research are routinely employing dedicated, on-line microprocessors or array processors; among such techniques are: Fourier-transform nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), NMR imaging (or tomography), x-ray tomography, x-ray diffraction, high performance liquid chromatography, differential scanning calorimetry and mass spectrometry. Networking of laboratory microprocessors linked to a central, large memory computer is the next logical step in laboratory automation. Previously unapproachable problems, such as molecular dynamics of solutions, many-body interaction calculations and statistical mechanics of biological processes are all likely to benefit from the increasing access to the new generation of "supercomputers". In view of the large number, diversity and complexity of computer applications in biology and medicine, we could not review in any degree of detail all computer applications in these fields; instead, we shall be selective and focus our discussion on suggestive computer models of biological systems and those fundamental aspects of computer applications that are likely to continue to make an impact on biological and biomedical research. Thus, we shall consider unifying trends in mathematics, mathematical logics and computer science that are relevant to computer modeling of biological and biomedical systems. The latter are pitched at a more formal, abstract level than the applications and, therefore, encompass a number of concepts drawn from the abstract theory of sets and relations, network theory, automata theory, Boolean and n-valued logics, abstract algebra, topology and category theory. The present analysis of relational theories in biology and computer simulation has also inspired a number of new results which are presented here as "Conjectures" since their proofs are too lengthy and too technical to be included in this review. In order to maintain a self-contained presentation-the definitions of the main concepts are given, with the exception of a minimum of simple mathematical concepts.