Biomedical computing in the Arab world

Health challenges represent one of the long standing issues in the Arab region that hinder its ability to develop. Prevalence of diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, liver cirrhosis and cancer among many others has contributed to the deteriorated health status across the region leading to lower life expectancy compared to other regions. Among many directions of healthcare development across the region, biomedical computing research represents one main arm of tackling health challenges. The enormity of volumes and interdependence in biomedical data pose great analyti cal challenges in the quest to infer deeply hidden knowledge buried under this complexity. The biomedical computing research community in the Arab world has been actively contributing to the efforts that tackle long-standing biomedical challenges.