Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
agency Modelling and Analysis Group (IMAG) was begun in 2003
2
. Following a
workshop in 2005 (Nørager et al., 2005) and the publication of the STEP
3
('Strategy
for a European Physiome') roadmap in 2006, the European Commission initiated
the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) project
4
in 2007. These projects and sim-
ilar initiatives in Japan
5
and Korea are now, to some extent, coordinated and are
collectively referred to here as the 'VPH-Physiome' Project.
The primary goal of the international VPH-Physiome Project is to develop, pro-
mote and facilitate the use of computational models, data and software tools (includ-
ing web services) for understanding the human body as an integrated system. This
will allow the development of strategies for disease prediction and medical treatment
that are more subject-specific and scientifically based. Medical practice will bene-
fit from technologies in which digital data enables predictable outcomes through
quantitative models that integrate physical processes across multiple spatial scales.
Computational tools are also being developed to link individual patient data with
virtual population databases using mathematical models of biological processes.
We discuss some of the standards, model and data repositories, tools and work-
flows being developed by the VPH-Physiome project to support multi-scale mod-
elling in clinical settings. The application of these tools is illustrated in the context
of multi-scale modelling of the heart in which physical processes are coupled at both
cellular and organ level scales.
8.2 Infrastructure for the VPH-Physiome Project
The VPH-Physiome Project aims to provide a systematic framework for understand-
ing physiological processes in the human body in terms of anatomical structure and
biophysical mechanisms at multiple length and time scales. The importance of estab-
lishing a solid foundation for the VPH by creating model and data standards, together
with mechanisms for achieving model reproducibility and reuse, was recognized
in the STEP Roadmap. The framework includes modelling languages for encoding
systems of differential-algebraic equations (DAEs, using for example, CellML
6
and
SBML
7
) and the spatially varying fields used with systems of partial differential
equations (PDEs using FieldML
8
). In both cases the parameters and variables in
the mathematical models are annotated with metadata that provides the biological
2
This coordinates various US Governmental funding agencies involved in multi-scale bio-
engineering modelling research including NIH, NSF, NASA, the Dept of Energy (DoE), the
Dept of Defense (DoD), the US Dept of Agriculture and the Dept of Veteran Affairs. See
www.nibib.nih.gov/Research/MultiScaleModelling/IMAG.
3
The STEP (“Strategy for a European Physiome”) report is available at www.europhysiome.
org/roadmap
4
See www.vph-noe.eu for details on the 15 projects funded under the VPH calls.
5
See www.physiome.jp for details on the Japanese Physiome Project.
6
www.cellml.org
7
www.sbml.org
8
www.fieldml.org
