The general experience that “a picture is worth a thousand words” also holds in the field of systems biology: Image-based Systems Biology is a modern approach that aims to extract spatio-temporal information contained in images in a form that it can be used to model morphological, functional and dynamical aspects of biological processes. Image-based Systems Biology seeks to take full advantage of the information in images and establishes an essential connection between experimental and theoretical examination of biological processes at a quantitative level. This approach includes:

(i) acquisition and automated analysis of image data for high-content and high-throughput screening;

(ii) quantitative description of biological processes by appropriate characteristic measures;

(iii) construction of image-derived spatio-temporal models and predictive computer simulations.

Researchers from all fields are invited to communicate their results focused on Image-based Systems Biology in order to exchange novel scientific methods and to share recent achievements from image-driven research in biology. Joint studies of experiment and theory will be highly welcomed. Furthermore, demonstrations of methods for accurate segmentation and classification of regions of interest or object-tracking that can be applied for high-content and high-throughput screening are of interest, as well as computational methods for translating images into mathematical models ranging from differential equations to agent-based methods.

You are cordially invited to contribute by submitting your abstract. This year we will start with a new format – the “Tandem-Talk” – and more information on this can be found here.

In 2018, the International Symposium Image-based Systems Biology will be preceeded by the annaual InfectoOptics conference Light meets Life, which takes place at the same location on September 5-6, 2018. You are cordially invited to this event as well and more information can be found here.

The International Symposium Image-based Systems Biology is taking place biennially since the year 2012 at the HKI-Center for Systems Biology of Infection in Jena, Germany. Information on previous Symposia can be found here.