Sustaining and strengthening biij

As stated in the first issue, biij as an open access multidisciplinary online journal, “was set up to meet the challenges of biomedical imaging and intervention facing the allied sciences community by providing a new avenue for discussion and exchange of viewpoints.” The Biomedical Imaging and Intervention Journal (biij) was born on July 16th 2005 during the opening ceremony of the ‘Second International University of Malaya Research Imaging Symposium: Fundamentals of Molecular Imaging’. The multimedia launch was accompanied by Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity. This is most fitting as applying advanced imaging and interventional techniques to improve the quality of health heralds joy to the world. We are especially interested in exploiting electronic publishing: online submission, online review, and online publication. Although numerous online journals have been published very few have taken advantage of the multimedia capabilities such as audio, video, animation, and simulation (Figures 1-3). We are convinced that this is the way journal publications will have to advance in the near future. Feature-rich html papers will appear in the biij. The abstracts of two international meetings have been archived in the first issue of the biij, namely Asian Breast Diseases Association (ABDA) Third Teaching Course: Advances in the Management of Breast Diseases, Kuantan, Malaysia (28-30 May 2005) and the 2nd International University of Malaya Research Imaging Symposium: Fundamentals of Molecular Imaging, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (16-17 July 2005).