Dear Colleagues:

The obstacles to successful drug discovery and development are numerous and well appreciated. In discovery, from target identification through lead optimization and validation, and in development, from first-in-man studies through large registration trials, inefficiencies and uncertainties complicate even well funded efforts by sophisticated and industrious scientists and clinicians. Despite huge outlays by the worldwide pharmaceutical research enterprise, the number of new chemical entities brought to market has actually declined in recent years, even as the cost of developing them has increased significantly.

Against this backdrop, biomedical imaging is poised to play an increasingly powerful role in enhancing the efficiency of the drug discovery and development process. Multiple modalities, including optical imaging, ultrasound, nuclear imaging (both positron and single photon tomography), x-ray computed tomography, and the many flavors of magnetic resonance imaging are all being integrated ever more fundamentally in the various phases of drug discovery and development. In CNS, oncology, rheumatology/inflammation, and many other clinical settings, imaging is pro