Bioengineering and Imaging Research Opportunities Workshop V: a white paper on imaging and characterizing structure and function in native and engineered tissues.

The fifth Bioengineering and Image Research Opportunities Workshop (BIROW V) was held on January 18-19, 2008. As with previous BIROW meetings, the purpose of BIROW V was to identify and characterize research and engineering opportunities in biomedical engineering and imaging. The topic of this BIROW meeting was Imaging and Characterizing Structure and Function in Native and Engineered Tissues. Under this topic, four areas were explored in depth: (1) Heterogeneous single-cell measurements and their integration into tissue and organism models; (2) Functional, molecular and structural imaging of engineered tissue in vitro and in vivo; (3) New technologies for characterizing cells and tissues in situ; (4) Imaging for targeted cell, gene and drug delivery.