VPH Events

VPHOP: Multiscale modelling of the skeleton to predict the risk of fracture in osteoporotic elders workshop

Introduction

The workshop aims to present the most important outcomes of the VPHOP Integrated Project, one of the first large-scale VPH projects funded in FP7. During its four years of activity the VPHOP consortium has been developing a personalised multiscale modelling technology that targets an understanding of the most important mechanobiological processes affecting the risk of the elderly to experience low-energy impact fractures. The personalised models account for the whole body, organ, tissue, and cellular level interactions, and are able to predict progressive changes to material properties, structure and ultimately fracture risk over time, and how pharmacological and interventional treatments might modify these risks. The modelling system is paired with a new generation of imaging and biomedical instrumentation technologies that are capable of collecting the most important information required for initialising personalised models. This system specifically works under the tight constraints required for clinical applications,which impose low radiation doses and moderate costs. From an information technology perspective, the VPHOP consortium has developed a hypermodel environment that is capable of wrapping heterogeneous modelling software packages into a single system for examining fracture risk, and execute them according to a user-defined workflow in a fully integrated fashion. The workshop will also dedicate a presentation session to the early results of the NMS Physiome Project, the international collaboration between VPHOP and the American SIMBIOS (the NIH Center for Physics-based Simulation of Biological Structures) which aims to develop synergies in terms of tools, infrastructures, and research activities related to musculoskeletal predictive medicine.

 Workshop Objectives, Goals, and Expected Outcome

The workshop will take place towards the end of the VPHOP project, when all of the technologies developed in the project will be up and running. It will showcase the results of the project, and will suggest to the VPH community some general approaches to the multiscale, integrative, personalised modelling of physiological and pathological processes with a relevant mechanobiology component. The primary outcome for the workshop is to redefine the methodological state of the art in musculoskeletal modelling, hopefully inspiring many other research groups to adopt similar approaches. In more general terms, we expect to provide to the VPH community a concrete example of VPH hypermodelling technology, which can be reused in most VPH target applications.

The workshop is taking place as part of the VPH2012: Integrative approaches to computational biomedicine (VPH2012: Integrative approaches to computational biomedicine) which is being held at the IET Savoy, 2 Savoy Place, London, WC2R 0BL. For further details on the VPH2012 including programme information and registration please click here