Abstract

The increasing availability of computational resources will lead to more detailed and complex models of the human body. In the future, efforts like the Virtual Physiological Human (Coveney, 2010) will provide a framework for developing and coupling biomechanical and bioelectric models of different scales and body parts. The term Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) indicates a shared resource formed by a federation of disparate but integrated computer models of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living human body in both physiological and pathological conditions. VPH models will be both descriptive and predictive. They comprise large collections of anatomical, physiological, and pathological data stored in digital format, predictive simulations developed from these collections, services aimed to support the researchers in the creation and maintenance of these models and services aimed to empower clinical, industrial and societal users in the use of the VPH resource. The Virtual Physiological Human is a methodological and technological framework that once established, will enable collaborative investigation of the human body as a single complex system. VPH is not ‘the supermodel’ that will explain all possible aspects of human physiology or pathology. It is away to share observations, to derive predictive hypotheses from them, and to integrate them into a constantly improving understanding of human physiology/pathology, by regarding it as an integrated system. Zusammenfassung