Dynamical Disease: A Translational Perspective

Drawing on the concept of a dynamical disease, these articles focus on translating theoretical insights of disease mechanism into deliverables at the bedside. In addition to the tools of dynamical systems, this necessitates the development of statistical techniques to identify the physiologically important parameters to be monitored, the development of efficient data mining techniques to detect abnormality and statistical techniques to identify artifacts and determine levels of significance that would motivate medical intervention. Emphasis is given to applications related to the design and monitoring of drug delivery systems, the generation of blood cell oscillations, respiratory and cardiac arrhythmias, and the treatment of "rare events" such as epileptic seizures, heart attacks and falls in the elderly. This issue brings the dream of providing a patient-centrist approach to individualized medicine one step closer.

Guest Editors: Jacques Bélair, Fahima Nekka, and John Milton