This volume contains 25 peer-reviewed papers based on the presentations at the 8th Annual International Workshop on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (IBSB 2008) held at the Teikyo Hotel, Zeuten Lake, near Berlin, from June 9 to June 10, 2008. This workshop started in 2001 as an event for doctoral students and young researchers to present and discuss their research results and approaches in bioinformatics and systems biology. It is part of a collaborative educational program involving leading institutions and leaders committed to the following programs and partner institutions:

Boston (Gary Benson) Graduate Program in Bioinformatics, Boston University

Berlin (Herman-Georg Holzhtter) The International Research Training Group (IRTG) "Genomics and Systems Biology of Molecular Networks"

Kyoto/Tokyo (Minoru Kanehisa/Satoru Miyano) Joint Bioinformatics Education Program of Kyoto University and University of Tokyo.

This volume contains 31 peer-reviewed papers based on the presentations at the 7th International Annual Workshop on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (IBSB 2007) held at the Human Genome Center, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo from July 31 to August 2, 2007. This workshop started in 2001 as an event for doctoral students and young researchers to present and discuss their research results and approaches in bioinformatics and systems biology. It is part of a collaborative educational program involving leading institutions and leaders committed to the following programs and partner institutions:* Boston (Charles DeLisi) - Graduate Program in Bioinformatics, Boston University* Berlin (Herman-Georg Holzhutter) - The International Research Training Group (IRTG) "Genomics and Systems Biology of Molecular Networks"* Kyoto/Tokyo (Minoru Kanehisa/Satoru Miyano) - Joint Bioinformatics Education Program of Kyoto University and University of Tokyo.This volume is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Reinhart Heinrich, a former Professor at Humboldt University Berlin and a co-founder of this workshop.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Medical Data Analysis, ISMDA 2003, held in Berlin, Germany in October 2003.

The 15 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on medical models and learning, integration of intelligent analysis methods into medical databases, medical signal processing and image analysis, and applications of medical diagnostic support systems.