NMS PHYSIOME

The musculoskeletal apparatus is probably the organ system where the need for the integrative approach advocated by the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) initiative is most pronounced. The neuromotor control involves the entire body, whereas the processes involved in muscle twitching, bones and muscle adaptation, musculoskeletal aging, and in most musculoskeletal diseases take place at the molecular level. The traditional reductionist approach is reaching dead ends in a number of relevant questions in musculoskeletal research, such as those related to osteoporotic fractures, the pathophysiology of growth in cerebral palsy children, the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, etc.

It is becoming more and more evident that the way out is the development of new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that makes personalised, predictive, and integrative musculoskeletal medicine possible. Worldwide, the two largest research projects focused on this are the Osteoporotic Virtual Physiological Human (VPHOP) integrated project funded by the European Commission, and the Center for Physics-based Simulation of Biological Structures (SIMBIOS) funded by the USA National Institute of Health. Both projects are targeting the same strategic objective, but each project breaks it into research goals that are overlapping in a few cases and complementary in all the others.

This unique condition creates an extremely interesting opportunity for international collaboration, which drastically increases the international impact of the work being done by the VPHOP project, and produces the conditions for global cooperation on this grand challenge of biomedical research. With the Neuro Musculo Skeletal Physiome (NMS Physiome) project, the SIMBIOS and VPHOP consortia intend to establish a more organic cooperation, structured around three objectives: integrate the project communities, integrate the projects tools, and work collaboratively on grand challenges.