This presentation introduces the current work of the Bioimage Corsortium and its international collaborators in the setting up of a new data base containing volumes of biological specimens.

The scope of the data that we will be organizing during the next three years is very broad, ranging from macromolecules to larger structures or even entire cells. The approach is designed to combine the desire to break many undesired formal barriers between the type of volume information produced at the different resolution levels whith, at the same time, the clear need of implementational flexibility required to appropriately handle different types of data.

The internal organization of the Bioimage Consortium clearly reflects the objectives presented above. In the first place, partners in the consortium have the scientific knowledge and projection in areas ranging from macromolecular structure to cell dynamics. These partners are then nucleated around two well-defined “servers”, one in Madrid, responsible for the work on macromolecular structures, and the other in Heildeberg, responsible for data more in the area of cell biology.