SOME of the world's leading experts in the field of medical body imaging have attended a seminar in the North-East.

Scientists and doctors from the US, Germany and Switzerland joined UK colleagues at a bio-imaging conference at Newcastle University.

Rapid advances in the science of imaging are opening up possibilities in the field of diagnosis, treatment and research.

The conference was organised by BioNEt, the North-East network which brings together research scientists, industry and the NHS to share developments in healthcare and lifesciences.

Dr Trevor Jackson, a senior research at Newcastle University, said: "Imaging opens a window of discovery to life-threatening health problems.

"New imaging techniques allow us to picture the differences between healthy and diseased cells more accurately. This significantly improves our understanding of the biology and the physiology of plants, organisms and the human body - a vital step to faster drug discovery and more effective disease management."

Newcastle University has made a big investment in developing the latest imagining facilities. Three years ago it bought one of the world's most powerful Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners, which is so sophisticated it allows researchers to observe brainwaves.