The adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words” also holds true 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 format that can be used to describe and 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:

• acquisition and automated analysis of image data for high-content and high-throughput screening;
• quantitative description of biological processes by appropriate characteristic measures;
• construction of image-derived spatio-temporal models and predictive computer simulations.

Researchers from all fields are invited to communicate their results centered 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.

The International Symposium on Image-based Systems Biology has taken place biennially since 2012 at the HKI-Center for Systems Biology of Infection in Jena, Germany.

The systems biology of microbial infection aims to understand the interaction between hosts and pathogens by the integrative combination of experiment and theory. The focus of this symposium is on the interaction between the immune systems of humans or animals and bacterial or fungal pathogens. We welcome contributions that, for example, focus on

• unraveling pathogenicity mechanisms by a systems biology approach,
• host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions,
• reconstructing cellular networks based on time series data,
• analysing spatio-temporal aspects of infection processes,
• identifying diagnostic biomarkers and potential drug targets,
• exploring strategies for personalized therapy.

The International Symposium on Systems Biology of Microbial Infection is taking place biennially since the year 2011 at the HKI-Center for Systems Biology of Infection in Jena, Germany.