© 2006 STEP Consortium Day 2: Tuesday 16 May 09.00 Reporters’ summaries of the six parallel sessions –Appointed reporters will encapsulate the discussions

© 2006 STEP Consortium

Day 2: Tuesday 16 May• 09.00 Reporters’ summaries of the six parallel sessions

– Appointed reporters will encapsulate the discussions that took place during the parallel session of Day 1

• 10.30-10.45 Coffee Break• 10.45 Plenary discussion

– Structure of the Roadmap document and Phase 2 Strands Final plenary meeting aimed to define the structure of the roadmap and organise the new strands around which will be structured the discussion in the second phase of the STEP action

• 12.45-13.45 Lunch• 13.45 Parallel meetings of the Phase 2 Strands• 15.15 Farewell coffee

– Informal meetings to organise new Europhysiome initiatives and follow-up activities within the STEP consensus process

• 17.00 End of STEP Conference 1


The EuroPhysiome The EuroPhysiome roadmaproadmap

Marco VicecontiSTEP Consortium


Impelling comments• Thanks to:

– Barry McMahon– Gordon Clapworthy– Fulvia Taddei– Alain Garny– Sarah Water– Serge Van Sint Jan

• Strands outcome uneven• Position papers should ready soon• Circulate early drafts to resolve interdependencies

• Send us the presentations


More ….• VPH IS NOT A PROJECT• STEP IS NOT A PROJECT• Molecular/Genetic: stand up!• Model Validation Vs Data Validation (Quality)• Patient-specific/population fusion = GOAL• Industrial salaries Vs Research Salaries• AMG: access problems• Recruiting Vs BE students excess• Pharma modelling dept are autonomous• Population Access Coordination Group• Repeat Fluids exercise on BT


The EuroPhysiome initiative• Physiome-related projects managed by

European researchers have been recently identified under the STEP Coordination action

• STEP: a Strategy for The EuroPhysiome aims to coordinate European efforts toward the development of the Virtual Physiological Human

• This effort will materialise into a VPH roadmap document, written through a running consensus process that will involve all European stakeholders


The Roadmap

• Common Objectives• Research Challenges• Resources Required• Ethical, Legal and Gender Issues• Impact Analysis• Dissemination Models• Exploitation Models & Long-term Sustainability

• Concrete Implementation: recommendations


Common Objectives /1

• Create a self-governing community that:– set the rule for the collaborations– Set the technological standards– Maintain a semantic representation of the VPH

– Coordinate dissemination efforts– Protect the logos, the names, etc.– Steer VPH development by providing grants, prices, etc.



• Establish some pilot repositories– LHDL– AneurIST– ImmunoGrid

• Develop common tools:– Middleware for the creation of federated VPH repositories

– Extensible software framework for the creation of VPH resources

– Application software for the provision of solutions to final users



• Management– Develop and operate the VPH portal

– Establish pilot exploitation initiatives

– Develop business models for long-term sustainability


Research Challenges

• Wrap-up from strand position documents


Resources Required /1

• NO EUROPHYSIOME PROJECT!!

• Organisational– The Europhysiome steering body– The central resources operator– The National VPH infrastructure nodes

• Financial– Infrastructure and prototypes (200 Meuro - 70% public)

– Take-up actions (50 Meuro - 30% public)– Large scale Exploitation (500 Meuro - 10% public)– Market size– Impact metrics



• Instrumental– VPH Node middleware distribution– VPH Security model (Challenge)– VPH Semantic infrastructure and tools– Framework for simulation resources sharing– Framework for fat clients development– Interoperability toolkits (mediators)

• Human– Special training programs (Excellence)– VPH literacy program (Users)– VPH Technology summer schools



• IPR Advisory body (IPR-Desk)• Clinical Data Sharing Task Force

• Business case• VPH Business Angels• VPH Ethical Board• VPH Media office


Legal, Ethical and Gender Issues

• Clinical data ownership• Limits of clinical data sharing• Inclusion in FP7 of a EC data and/or models sharing policy (NIH model)

• IPR models, particularly for highly reusable resources

• Affirmative policies for gender equality in all VPH initiatives


The Organisational Model

• A no-profit organisation that owns the assets and moderate the community

• An independent organisation (public or private) directly supported by the EC that operates the common infrastructure (portal, software suite distribution, etc.)

• An array of VPH hosting nodes located at public supercomputing centres sustained at the national level as services to the research community, but open for hosting of data from any member state (final users access might be limited to nationals)

• A federation of Europhysiome projects that access the common infrastructure in exchange of adhesion to the rules of the VPH


Community Building Initiatives

• Create a data sharing policy based on barter or on the collection of access fees that the resource owner can modulate on the type of user (profit, no-profit, clinical, etc.)

• Promote all-inclusiveness in the management of the initiative

• Promote a distribution of resources based on goal orientation


Impact Analysis

• Identification of the

stakeholders

• Stakeholders’ needs

• Impact projections


Dissemination Models

• Biomed Town

• The VPH D-Day (EU Press release)

• Community news feed (Biomed Town)

• Specialised communication

materials

• Physiome Sessions (ISBI, WCB)

• National Presentation Days


Exploitation Models & Long-term

Sustainability

• Collectivism enforcement policies

• Barter models

• A VPH Marketplace


Concrete Implementation /1

• Direct EC funding for continuous operation of the common infrastructure

• Two Networks of Excellence:– one for Domain Experts and Users– one for Technologists and Domains experts



• IP for large VPH sub-systems:– Brain and nervous system (not cognitive)– Musculoskeletal and other connective tissues– Cardiovascular and respiratory– Internal organs– Metabolic systems

• Approximately 50 STRP is specific topics ranging from biology, to bioengineering, to ICT, including early clinical demonstrators on specific diseases



• One ERA-NET program to coordinate VPH national efforts

• One Marie Curie special action for cross-disciplinary doctoral training

• CRAFT and other short (18 months) industrial take-up actions

• Involvement with Technology Platforms

• ESF networking


STEP Phase #2STEP Phase #2


STEP Phase #2: process

• From 100 to 1000 (Missing Actors)

• New discussion strands

• Roadmap Editing task force

• Conference #2


STEP Phase #2: Panels

• Consolidation of the Advisory and Expert Boards

• Expert-take-an-expert

• Invitation to Societies– ESBiomech and ESBiomat– ???

• Internet Communities– BIOMCH-L– ????


STEP Phase #2: Strands

• VPH Science• VPH Technology

• VPH Users• VPH Producers• VPH Technologists


Conference #2

• Send suggestions for program and structure

• Media Coverage?

• Expected size?

• Open event - Close number


Virtual Physiological Human

“a shared resource formed by a federation of disparate but integrated computer models of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of the

human body in both physiological and pathological conditions”


Scope• VPH aims the way we do biomedical research• Biomedical research is facing the problem of complexity

• By developing global integrative models and networks

• Classic fragmented approach must be complemented by a flexible integrative approach

• This requires a paradigmatic shift in biomedical research

• The scope of VPH is to develop a set of the integrated tools enabling the use of any combination of known physiological data in the construction of predictive models unrestricted by resolution


Gaps

• Missing models to span between different dimensional scales (eg. Genomics - physiology)

• Missing tools to integrate among scales and over populations

• Missing databases?• Information fusion


Thank You!Thank You!

Documents

© 2006 STEP Consortium Day 2: Tuesday 16 May 09.00 Reporters’ summaries of the six parallel sessions –Appointed reporters will encapsulate the discussions