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The virtual physiological human: integrative approaches to computational biomedicine

Theme issue of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface Focus

Volume 3, Number 2, 21 February 2013 (online); 6 April 2013 (in print)

Organised by Peter Coveney, Vanessa Diaz-Zuccarini, Norbert Graf, Peter Hunter, Peter Kohl, Jesper Tegner and Marco Viceconti. 

Don't Stop the Beat: Computational models of the heart’s electrical activity as part of the preDiCT project

• http://www.isgtw.org/feature/don’t-stop-beat

Phil Trans R Soc A Table of Contents for Theme Issue "Towards the virtual physiological human: mathematical and computational case studies"

• compiled and edited by Bindi Brook, Peter Kohl and John King
• 13 November 2011; Vol. 369, No. 1954
• Article

Latest Issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: The Virtual Physiological Human: Computer Simulation for Integrative Biomedicine II

Researchers at Hospital del Mar Research Institute (IMIM) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) have successfully reproduced and reconstructed the complete process of a small molecule binding with its target protein. IMIM and UPF are part of the VPH NoE Network and this project started as part of the VPH NoE's Seed Exemplar Project 4 (http://www.vph-noe.eu/exemplarprojects?start=4)

For further information please see the reference article: "Complete reconstruction of an enzyme-inhibitor binding process by molecular dynamics simulations" IBuch, T Giorgino, G De Fabritiis. http://www.pnas.org/content/104/51/20167 or contact IMIM's communications department - Rosa Manaut, Tel.: +34 618509885

Please also note that there is a video of MD simulations of free benzamidine binding to trypsin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKNmBjqGijI&feature=youtu.be

The Royal Society Publishing has recently released the statistics for the year 2009 on the most cited papers in its journals. In the statistics for the Transactions of the Royal Society Part A, which since 2008, traditionally hosts a two-volume special issue related to the VPH, four of the ten most cited papers are from the 2009 VPH special issue. These articles will be freely available online throughout 2010.

Each issue of the Royal Society Philosophical Transactions A (RSTA) is devoted to a specific area of the mathematical, physical and engineering sciences. This area defines a research frontier that is advancing rapidly and which often bridges traditional disciplines. According to this editorial scope, in 2008 RSTA started to host an annual two volume special issue entirely focused on the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH). These are the titles of the VPH special issues so far:

• 2008 vol I - Theme Issue ‘The virtual physiological human: building a framework for computational biomedicine I’ compiled by Marco Viceconti, Gordon Clapworthy, Peter Coveney and Peter Kohl;
• 2008 vol II - Theme Issue ‘The virtual physiological human: building a framework for computational biomedicine II’ compiled by Marco Viceconti, Gordon Clapworthy, Peter Coveney and Peter Kohl;
• 2009 vol I - Theme Issue ‘The virtual physiological human: tools and applications I’ compiled by David Gavaghan, Peter Coveney and Peter Kohl;
• 2009 vol II - Theme Issue ‘The virtual physiological human: tools and applications II’ compiled by Peter Kohl, Peter Coveney and David Gavaghan;
• 2010 vol I - Theme Issue 'The virtual physiological human: computer simulation for integrative biomedicine I' compiled and edited by Marco Viceconti and Peter Kohl;
• 2010 vol II - Theme Issue 'The virtual physiological human: computer simulation for integrative biomedicine II' compiled and edited by Peter Kohl and Marco Viceconti (Now available online!)

The past year has been an extremely successful year for the Royal Society journals. Over the past twelve months, they report that they have witnessed an impressive rise in submissions, as well as an exceptional rise in article downloads, citations and Impact Factors. The Royal Society Publishing has provided the RSTA citation statistics for 2009. Among the 10 most cited papers, four are from the 2009 VPH special two volume issue:

• A systems perspective on the effective connectivity of overt speech production (2009 vol II)

Simon Eickhoff, Stefan Heim, Katrin Amunts

• CellML metadata standards, associated tools and repositories (2009 vol I)

Daniel Beard, Randall Britten, Mike Cooling, Alan Garny, Matt Halstead, Peter Hunter, James Lawson, Catherine Lloyd, Justin Marsh, Andrew Miller, David Nickerson, Poul Nielsen, Taishin Nomura, Shankar Subramanium, Sarala Wimalaratne and Tommy Yu

• CELLULAR OPEN RESOURCE (COR): current status and future directions (2009 vol I)

Alan Garny, Denis Noble, Peter Hunter and Peter Kohl

• Generation of histo-anatomically representative models of the individual heart: tools and application (2009 vol II)

Gernot Plank, Rebecca Burton, Patrick Hales, Martin Bishop, Tahir Mansoori, Miguel Bernabeu, Alan Garny, Anton Prassl, Christian Bollensdorff, Fleur Mason, Fahd Mahmood, Blanca Rodriguez, Jürgen Schneider, David Gavaghan and Peter Kohl

This important result confirms that VPH research is gaining momentum, not only in clinical research and industrial interest but also from an academic point of view.

These articles, which represent just a selection of the high-quality, peer-reviewed content published in the journal, will be FREELY available online throughout 2010. Congratulations to all those VPH researchers involved in these articles and VPH issues as a whole!