IMAG/MSM Vision

Insightful application of ever-increasing advances in the computational modeling of biological, biomedical and behavioral systems, across wide ranges of spatial and temporal scales, has the power to provide a rigorous framework for scientific discovery and translation.

Mission

Grow and expand the field of multiscale modeling through the development and application of mechanistic mathematical and computational models over wide ranges of spatial and temporal scales and multiple levels of investigation that include anatomical, physiological, behavioral, social, and environmental elements.  Specifically:

• Promoting interdisciplinary collaborations and building a diverse community of mathematicians, statisticians, computational scientists, experimentalists, clinicians, public health experts and other stakeholders from all sectors through the combination of different modeling techniques.
• Developing new methods and algorithms for mechanism-based modeling; enhancing mechanistic machine learning and artificial intelligence; predicting reproducible outcomes across spatial and temporal scales.
• Ensuring the implementation of credible practices for modeling and FAIR principles for scientific data management towards integrating model development, documentation, benchmarking, sharing and reuse.
• Facilitating the dissemination of models and modeling insights within the biomedical, biological, behavioral, clinical, and other IMAG-relevant communities and agencies, and adobption by their stakeholder communities.
• Encouraging, mentoring, and providing access to future generations of multiscale modelers.

MSM Definition

Multiscale biological, biomedical and behavioral modeling (MSM) uses mathematics, statistics and computation to represent, simulate, and mechanistically define and predict system function across spatial scales (atomic, molecular, macromolecular complex, organelle, cellular, tissue, organ, multi-organ, organismal, behavioral, population) and temporal scales (nanoseconds, microseconds, milliseconds, seconds, minutes, hours, years).  Biological, biomedical and behavioral mechanisms include physics-based, chemistry-based principles.  

MSM Motivation

Multiscale models that accurately represent phenomena across wide ranges of spatial and temporal scales provide a wholistic perspective of system function.  It provides a framework for the integration of multiple structures, functions and information sources.  Multiscale models allow end users to systematically identify what is known, what is not known across sub-systems and under varying conditions; to identify system susceptibilities and vulnerabilities; to create testable hypotheses; to systematically study system uncertainty; to predict and reproduce outcomes.  MSM can be critically beneficial for implementing policies and guidelines - ultimately accelerating the research and development enterprise.