COMBIOMED: A Cooperative Thematic Research Network on COMputational BIOMEDicine in Spain

The Cooperative Thematic Research Network on Computational Biomedicine COMBIOMED was approved in the last call for Thematic Networks in Health Research within the Spanish National Plan for Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation and it is funded for the period 2008-2011. The COMBIOMED Network is currently addressing various aspects that range from basic to applied research in science for the development of methods and tools to solve problems in biomedical science in the context of personalized medicine. This paper describes and analyses the organizational aspects and scientific areas in which this network has been focused (gene-disease association, pharmainformatics and decision support systems at the point of care). At the same time, COMBIOMED aims to play a central role in the education of researchers and in the training of health professionals in techniques for the processing of biomedical information.