Biomedical Informatics and HealthGRIDs: A European Perspective - Past and Current Efforts and Projects in the Synergy of Bionformatics and Medical Informatics

In this article we have provided an overview of current approaches related to biomedical informatics (BMI), GRID, and genomic medicine, particularly in Europe. Research on areas such as ontologies, data mining, information retrieval, or semantic interoperability is redefining current informatics methodologies to support biomedical research. While traditional disciplines such as BI, MI, and neuroinformatics will keep their characteristics and independence, some initiatives are being supported, such as in BMI, to enhance synergy among them and other "omics" disciplines, going beyond the actual vision of interdisciplinary research. This synergy, currently addressed by BMI and GRID projects, is being extended, at a conceptual level, to include other areas. In this regard, workshops and activities have been supported by the Directorate General Information Society of the EC since 2004 . These have discussed the visions and challenges in an intersecting area at the boundary between informatics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and cognitive science.