Biocomputational methodology an adjunct to theory and applications

The role of "methodology", as distinguished from "theory" and "application", is discussed and illustrated. It is argued that research in the biomedical sciences is moving towards a degree of complexity different in both kind and extent from that usually encountered in other disciplines. Certain biocomputational methodology can be viewed as a bridge between the data forms commonly encountered in biomedicine, and the statistical and computational machinery which had previously been developed to deal with physical science information. Examples are given of three promising research subareas, all of which concern methods for dealing with highly complex forms of health and medical data.