Peter Hunter, Director of the Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland and a leading figure of the Physiome project, is giving a series of lectures on October 27-28, 2008 at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB).Time: October 27-28, 09.00 - 12.00
Place: Håkonshallen, IHA, UMB
Currently one of the biggest undertakings in computational biology, the Physiome project aims to integrate mathematical models from genes to the whole organism. The lectures are relevant for all those who want to contribute to, or just get an overview of, one of the major scientific endeavours in the 21st century. The impact of this research programme on biomedicine, production biology and evolutionary biology is likely to become substantial. The lectures on October 27 will give the big picture, while the second day delves into computational tools for finite element methods in continuum dynamics which is the basic methodology for handling morphological and physiological processes in complex biological structures.
The lectures will be given at Centre for Integrative Genetics, in the room "Håkonshallen" at the Department of Animal science, Norwegian University of Life Sciences. For further inquiries, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Two major developments in current medicine are, on the one hand, the much publicised genomics (and soon proteomics) revolution and, on the other, the revolution in medical imaging in which the physiological function of the human body can be studied with a plethora of imaging devices such as MRI, CT, PET, ultrasound, electrical mapping, etc. The challenge now is to link these two developments for an individual - to use complementary genomic and medical imaging data, together with computational modelling tailored to the anatomy, physiology and genetics of that individual, for patient-specific diagnosis and treatment.
To help address this challenge, the Physiome Project of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) is developing a comprehensive framework for modelling the human body using computational methods which can incorporate the biochemistry, biophysics and anatomy of cells, tissues and organs. A major goal of the project is to use computational modelling to analyse integrative biological function in terms of underlying structure and molecular mechanisms. A newly formed EU Network of Excellence for the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) is also contributing and, in particular, addressing clinical applications of the project.
To facilitate model reuse among researchers in computational physiology, two XML markup languages for encoding biological models, CellML & FieldML, are being developed. CellML deals with models of so-called ‘lumped parameter’ systems, where spatial effects are averaged, and typically involves systems of ordinary differential equations and algebraic equations. FieldML addresses the spatial variations in cell or tissue properties where the models typically rely on partial differential equations. Model repositories based on these standards and implementing a wide variety of models from peer-reviewed publications have been developed (www.cellml.org/models) and open source software tools for creating, visualizing and executing these models are currently available (www.cellml.org/tools) and under continuous development.
The first of the three lectures will present an overview of the Physiome Project (philosophy, methods, applications), an introduction to the description of spatial fields with the FieldML markup language and the use of the (open source) software cmgui for displaying spatial fields. The second lecture will provide an overview of the CellML markup language and the associated model repository and computational tools. The final lecture will provide an overview of computational techniques for solving continuum problems in computational physiology (focussing primarily on the finite element method).
Lecture 1 and 3, as specified in the PDF file, will be given on October 27. Lecture 2 will be given on October 28.
Place: Håkonshallen, IHA, UMB
Currently one of the biggest undertakings in computational biology, the Physiome project aims to integrate mathematical models from genes to the whole organism. The lectures are relevant for all those who want to contribute to, or just get an overview of, one of the major scientific endeavours in the 21st century. The impact of this research programme on biomedicine, production biology and evolutionary biology is likely to become substantial. The lectures on October 27 will give the big picture, while the second day delves into computational tools for finite element methods in continuum dynamics which is the basic methodology for handling morphological and physiological processes in complex biological structures.
The lectures will be given at Centre for Integrative Genetics, in the room "Håkonshallen" at the Department of Animal science, Norwegian University of Life Sciences. For further inquiries, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Two major developments in current medicine are, on the one hand, the much publicised genomics (and soon proteomics) revolution and, on the other, the revolution in medical imaging in which the physiological function of the human body can be studied with a plethora of imaging devices such as MRI, CT, PET, ultrasound, electrical mapping, etc. The challenge now is to link these two developments for an individual - to use complementary genomic and medical imaging data, together with computational modelling tailored to the anatomy, physiology and genetics of that individual, for patient-specific diagnosis and treatment.
To help address this challenge, the Physiome Project of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) is developing a comprehensive framework for modelling the human body using computational methods which can incorporate the biochemistry, biophysics and anatomy of cells, tissues and organs. A major goal of the project is to use computational modelling to analyse integrative biological function in terms of underlying structure and molecular mechanisms. A newly formed EU Network of Excellence for the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) is also contributing and, in particular, addressing clinical applications of the project.
To facilitate model reuse among researchers in computational physiology, two XML markup languages for encoding biological models, CellML & FieldML, are being developed. CellML deals with models of so-called ‘lumped parameter’ systems, where spatial effects are averaged, and typically involves systems of ordinary differential equations and algebraic equations. FieldML addresses the spatial variations in cell or tissue properties where the models typically rely on partial differential equations. Model repositories based on these standards and implementing a wide variety of models from peer-reviewed publications have been developed (www.cellml.org/models) and open source software tools for creating, visualizing and executing these models are currently available (www.cellml.org/tools) and under continuous development.
The first of the three lectures will present an overview of the Physiome Project (philosophy, methods, applications), an introduction to the description of spatial fields with the FieldML markup language and the use of the (open source) software cmgui for displaying spatial fields. The second lecture will provide an overview of the CellML markup language and the associated model repository and computational tools. The final lecture will provide an overview of computational techniques for solving continuum problems in computational physiology (focussing primarily on the finite element method).
Lecture 1 and 3, as specified in the PDF file, will be given on October 27. Lecture 2 will be given on October 28.
