European project to assemble a virtual human body to aid medical research

6 July 2009

The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) is a pan-European project that aims to create a methodological and technological framework to deliver patient-specific computer models for the personalised and predictive healthcare of the future.

Once established, it will allow a wide range of academic, clinical and industrial researchers to investigate the human body as a single complex system. They will be able to use the VPH network’s expanding database of computer simulation data to develop better diagnosis and treatment methods.

Researchers at The University of Nottingham have been charged with developing a postgraduate VPH training programme that will be cross-disciplinary and will involve periods of study for this kind of collaborative scientist at universities across Europe.

A study group investigated one aspect of VPH science last week when mathematicians and medical researchers worked together to use mathematical modelling to suggest solutions to currently unsolved biomedical problems.

Study groups are workshops promoting the interaction between modellers and academic and industrial researchers working within life sciences. The latter two are invited to present technical problems for study in intensive workshops with leading mathematical modellers from the academic community.

The groups tried to model various problems relating to regenerative medicine, with a focus on epithelial (membrane) cells in the skin, bladder, lungs, gut, heart and breast. The development of new theoretical models could result in journal publications, and eventually funded research projects in their own right.

Dr Bindi Brook of the University’s School of Mathematical Sciences said: “This study group is one of the prototypes for the sort of collaborative study which will be a key feature of our new VPH training programme. The course will allow postgraduates to train within the VPH network of European universities and, crucially, to access and contribute to a virtual VPH academy online.”

The Virtual Physiological Human is a €72 million initiative funded by the EU. It could revolutionise medical science in the 21st century. Central to its success will be to maximise the return from the vast quantities of patient-specific data that is emerging in the post-genomic era.

Advances in computing and information technology have the potential to deliver tailored clinical treatments based on simulation of the genetic profile of the patient. And this is not just a long-term goal. It’s expected that substantial advances in this field will be made over the next ten years in a range of diseases, from cancer to HIV/AIDS.

The University of Nottingham, with the Municipal Institute of Medical Investigation in Barcelona, is launching a new VPH training programme over the next year and aims to start recruiting the first students in September 2010.

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