Introduction to MiFoBio

Biological imaging has made a major contribution to our understanding of the living world, thanks to a succession of conceptual and technological advances in chemistry and physics. Over the past 20 years, the field of biological imaging has made dazzling progress, as witnessed by the award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 to O.Shimomura, M. Chalfie and R. Y. Tsien for their work on proteins, in 2014 to E. Betzig, S. Hell and W. Moerner for super-resolution microscopy and finally this year, it was awarded to M. Bawendi, L. Brus and A. Ekimov for the development of Quantum Dots, withmany applications in imaging. These imaging techniques have developed both in nanoscopy, with measurements at the level of the single molecule in a cell, and in macroscopy, with imaging of whole tissues and organisms. Increasingly powerful algorithms make it possible to exploit the vast amounts of data produced by these different imaging techniques.This dynamic is driven by a succession of major advances in mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, instrumentation, engineering and molecular and cellular biology. This approach, which aims to integrate increasing levels of complexity, is naturally interdisciplinary. Conceptually and technologically, these imaging technologies need to converge to reintegrate molecular quantification into approaches that take account of physiological aspects on the scale of organs and organisms, whether natural or reconstructed. This means rethinking our imaging methods, exploiting new emerging concepts in physics and chemistry, and taking advantage of new experimental and theoretical models to address issues of greater complexity, integrating notions of biological systems and the effects of their environment. More integrative and systemic approaches combining measurements, analyses and modeling at different spatial and temporal scales of living organisms are needed today. The challenge for MiFoBio school is to share the knowledge and know-how needed to forge new tools and concepts to meet these challenges.

New developments in bioimaging are continuously breaking barriers in terms of resolution, speed, minimal invasiveness, and adaptability to molecular studies in living organisms. As such, the main mission of the MiFoBio school is to ensure the knowledge transfer within the community, training the younger generations at the bioimaging interface in the plurality of its components while also promoting the integration of new skills, particularly in the field of analysis, data management and modeling.