1. society
2. welfare
3. healthcare

Issue 1: Spring 2015
“THE SHOWCASE EDITION”
BIG DATA
PROJECT NEWS
EVENTS ROUNDUP
CONTENTS
04News
Events & Awards
Inside Issue 1
07Introducing...
Polaris
08
Project Focus
VIRTUheart
10
The Feature
Big Data
12
Researcher Focus
Damien Lacroix
10
16Showcase
Timetable
18
VPH Institute
Adriano Henney
The Pam Liversidge Building
Sir Frederick Mappin Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
07
12
+44 (0) 114 222 0162 /5 /7
info@insigneo.org
www.insigneo.org
@insigneo
Cover: “Stem cells on a biomaterial with hierarchical
porosity.”
Robert Owen, PhD student, Materials Science.
Supervisors; Reilly, Lacroix, Bellantuono and Claeyssens.
With thanks to Dr. Nicola Green of the Kroto Imaging
Facility.
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08
THE INSIGNEO TEAM BASED IN THE PAM LIVERSIDGE BUILDING
Welcome
Insigneo: a coalition of the willing. When
we explain how Insigneo works, we
frequently use the expression “coalition
of the willing”. In spite of being
hijacked by the Bush administration for
the first Iraq war, I think it is a beautiful
expression. It means that we work
together by choice, that we share effort
and resources to the extent each of us
sees appropriate.
But there is another expression that
is very important: “united we stand,
divided we fall”. I am fully aware that
the archetypical academic could be
described as individualist and anarchic;
it comes with the territory. But current
trends regarding higher education in the
UK, especially in relation to research,
suggest clearly that universities need
to focus, ensuring that most of their
research falls into a small number
of public narratives. This allows an
institution to be recognised as a national
leader in a particular area.
So we need to close ranks and
make our shared vision of a predictive
medicine strong and articulated. Our
annual Showcase is the perfect occasion
to reinforce this coalition, to establish
new collaborations, understand better
what others within Insigneo do and get
more involved in its governance and in
the development of shared resources.
“Divided we fall, Insigneo we stand.”
Professor Marco Viceconti,
Executive Director Insigneo
May 2015
INSIGNEO NEWS
“Our annual
Showcase is
the perfect
occasion to
reinforce this
coalition and to
establish new
collaborations”
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3
NEWS
News Roundup
Major highlights from all the Insigneo projects, students and researchers
Bursary
collaboration
Sheffield Hospitals Charity
has partnered with the
Insigneo Institute to fund
four innovative research
projects that bring together
clinicians from the Sheffield
Teaching Hospitals with
researchers from the
University of Sheffield
in order to use the latest
research methodologies
to address clinical needs.
between
Sheffield
Hospitals
The programme, which has
just entered its third round,
is funding three six-month
bursaries and one threeyear PhD scholarship. The
successful projects were
chosen for their potential
to impact clinical practice
and improve patient
experience. For a full list of
the successful bursaries, see
www.insigneo.org
Charity
and
Insigneo
L-R: P. LAWFORD, D. REYNOLDS & H. SHENTON
£1.3m for research into
brain blood transport
PROFESSOR EASTELL WITH HIS AWARD
Insigneo
members’
awards
Congratulations to Insigneo
members Professor Richard Eastell
and Dr. Gwendolen Reilly for their
notable achievements. Professor
Eastell was awarded the Frederic
C. Bartter Award for outstanding
clinical investigation in disorders
of bone and mineral metabolism.
Richard becomes one of only two
4 INSIGNEO NEWS
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and
achievements
people working in the UK in the
past 26 years to be awarded
this most important accolade
for clinical research into bone
disease. Dr. Reilly was elected as
President of the European Society
of Biomechanics and becomes the
first woman - as well as the third
Insigneo member - to hold the role.
Insigneo member Professor
Alex Frangi, of CISTIB at
the University of Sheffield
has been awarded an
EPSRC grant worth £1.3m
to characterise and quantify
early differential alteration
in brain blood transport
with a novel MRI technique.
The OCEAN project
will draw on techniques
of neuropathology,
neuroimaging and
biophysics to identify
biomarkers of disease
onset and progression
to better understand the
effects of various drugs and
treatments.
View the MySpine project video at www.insigneo.org
System to support treatment of
back pain developed
A clinical support system which will help
clinicians treat patients with lower back
pain has been developed thanks to
research conducted in association with the
Insigneo Institute for in silico medicine. The
MySpine™ software system combines MR
and CT images to generate personalised
models of the lower spine. Using state-ofthe-art in silico methods, three potential
treatment options - discectomy, spinal
fusion and a conservative treatment
such as physiotherapy - can be virtually
trialled. By simulating an ageing process,
the impact of each treatment can be
accurately assessed. Once validated
for clinical use, this information will aid
clinicians in choosing the best treatment for
patients with lower back pain - a condition
which affects up to 80% of the population
at some point in their lives.
The €4m EC-funded project, which
ran from 2011 to late 2014, met for its
final technical meeting on 26th and 27th
August 2014 in Buxton, near Sheffield.
Representatives from each of the seven
project partners met in the Chatsworth
Room at the Palace Hotel, Buxton to
evaluate the complex technical outputs
and to discuss the work that will be taken
forward into clinical practice.
The results have been very impressive
and highly encouraging. The project has
identified key characteristics that seem to
offer clinically-relevant insights into the
consequences of different interventions for
the future health of patients, and the work
to exploit these outputs will now be taken
further; it is hoped that the MySpine™
software system will be helping patients
lead better lives before too long.
INSIGNEO NEWS
ISSUE 1
MySpine™
will aid
clinicians
to select
the best
treatment
for lower
back
pain - a
condition
which
effects up
to 80%
of the
population
SPRING 2015
5
EVENTS
Events
Out and about with Insigneo
1
1. Enjoying the views in Rome with the
Avicenna Project 2. Creative brainstorming
at the MultiSim Workshop 3. Gwen Reilly
taking over as President of the European
Society of Biomechanics 4. Fundraising
cakes at the MacMillan coffee morning 5.
The Insigneo General Assembly 6. Taking a
break at the Christmas lunch
4
2
3
6
5
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INTRODUCING
POLARIS
£7.5 million award is taking state-of-the-art lung research to the next level
World leading lung research, undertaken at the
University of Sheffield and associated with the
Insigneo Institute, has received a welcome boost
of £7.5 million from the Medical Research Council
and British Heart Foundation. The grant will help
the POLARIS project, led by Professor Jim Wild
of the Academic Unit of Radiology - and Insigneo
member, expand its groundbreaking image
acquisition and processing facilities in Sheffield,
turning the UK into the leading nation in the area
of diagnostic pulmonary medicine. The award
is part of a £230 million grant for technologies,
announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
George Osborne, in October 2014.
Professor Wild’s Pulmonary, Lung and Respiratory
Imaging Sheffield (POLARIS) project uses stateof-the-art techniques to produce highly detailed
images of patients’ lungs, without relying on
radiation. By using hyperpolarised gases, the
POLARIS team creates functional images of the
lungs of patients affected by conditions such as
smoking, cystic fibrosis, emphysema, pulmonary
hypertension and asthma.
The images, which are more detailed than those
created using conventional methods, are created
when a patient inhales a small amount of a noble
gas, such as Helium-3 or Xenon-129. Using high
power lasers, the gases are hyperpolarised in a
process called ‘optical pumping’. The MRI images
can then be used to help clinicians identify early
signs of lung disease and other lung conditions.
Several technical barriers, such as the ease of
polarisation of the gases and the additional
hardware required for the MRI scanners, still
need to be overcome before this technology can
become routinely used in the clinic.
Professor Wild said: “this grant will allow
continued research into MRI scanner hardware
and image acquisition methods and their clinical
translation, ensuring Sheffield and the UK lead
in this important area of diagnostic pulmonary
medicine. The new image processing laboratory
will allow us to process large volumes of digital
imaging data for phenotyping pulmonary
diseases together with computational modelling
approaches, which are being pioneered in the
Insigneo Institute for in silico medicine.”
A pair of healthy lungs (L) and a pair effected by smoking (R)
INSIGNEO NEWS
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7
PROJECT FOCUS
VIRTUheart
Technology developed in association with Insigneo will help ease the burden on
patients undergoing assessment for coronary artery disease
Going into hospital for a procedure
is never pleasant. At best, it is an
inconvenience, at worst, undergoing
surgery or even an assessment can
be anxiety inducing, uncomfortable,
invasive and often leave the patient
needing a lengthy period of recovery.
Anything which can be done to reduce
this burden - on the patient, but also
on hospital resources - is a welcome
development.
VIRTUheart, a research project
coordinated by the University of
Sheffield and affiliated to the Insigneo
Institute, has developed technology
to improve the process for patients
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undergoing assessment for coronary
artery disease. By replacing an
invasive procedure - which involves
inserting a wire into the patient’s artery
- with in silico methods, the VIRTUheart
technology ensures the process is
safer for the patient. By avoiding the
administration of drugs with potentially
unpleasant side effects, it also ensures
that the procedure is easier for the
patient to endure. It is good news
for hospital accountants too, as the
improved technique reduces the cost
of the procedure, both by eliminating
the need for additional hardware
and significantly reducing the time to
conduct the assessment.
By replacing
an invasive
procedure with
in silico
methods,
VIRTUheart
ensures the
process is safer
for the patient.
Dr Paul Morris, a cardiology doctor
from Sheffield Teaching Hospitals,
who works on the VIRTUheart project
explains: “VIRTUheart provides
important clinical information for
doctors when making decisions about
how to treat coronary artery disease.
It computes intra-coronary physiology
and virtual fractional flow reserve
(vFFR) from angiogram images of the
coronary arteries. It does this by using
the ANSYS-CFX computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) software to calculate
changes in blood pressure, which occur
within diseased coronary arteries,
rather than relying upon measurement
with an invasive intracoronary pressure
wire.”
predict, with 97% accuracy, compared
to previous methods, which patients
required coronary revascularisation,
by stent or surgery and, importantly,
which did not. VIRTUheart now aims to
widen its test cases and make its system
more user friendly, in preparation for
a large multi-centre clinical trial. The
VIRTU-2 study is collecting data from
100 more patients with coronary artery
disease. These patients have more
complex coronary disease and will help
to develop a useful tool for physicians
to use in ‘real-world’ cases. The further
cases will also help us to develop the
novel individual-patient-tuning system
which will improve accuracy on a case
by case basis.
Despite relying on complex
mathematical modelling to provide
physiological and anatomical
information about diseased coronary
arteries, the VIRTUheart technology
is designed to be used by clinicians
in everyday consultations. As such, it
effectively automates a number of
advanced computation, modelling
and simulation processes, so that all
that is needed to use VIRTUheart is an
angiogram. Dr Morris says: “We want
this tool to be used by clinicians, so it
needs to be simple and intuitive. It can’t
be reliant on computer scientists.”
Allowing for the completion of this study
and the trial of the system, Dr Morris
estimates that the technology is about
three years from clinical use. Having
worked at the juncture of research and
healthcare, he has an informed position
on the challenges of translating one to
the other: “Projects aiming for clinical
translation need to focus on what is
useful to the clinician, not the scientist.
This is why collaborations between the
NHS and academic institutions, just like
VIRTUheart
Insigneo are so important. Often clinical
simulations of
medicine does not require what scientists
coronary arteries or engineers might consider to be very
Projects aiming high levels of model accuracy. Instead,
knowing the level of uncertainty for a
for clinical
particular result might be just as useful.
translation need Ultimately, a model which demonstrates
to focus on
promise requires a clinical trial in
what is useful order to encourage uptake and clinical
to the clinician, adoption. This is what we are aiming for
not the scientist. with our research.”
The work of VIRTUheart is at the
forefront of the ambition of the
Insigneo Institute as it represents
the realisation of the translation of
academic research to clinically useful
tools. Already tested on an initial
study of 20 patients, it was able to
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9
FEATURE
Big Data
Insigneo members Richard Clayton, Andrew Narracott and Steven Wood discuss
the importance of Big Data for in silico medicine
The ability
to combine
healthcare
records
with lifestyle
data has the
potential to
deliver a highly
personalised
representation
of an
individual,
which would
enable targeted
and patient
specific
interventions
and therapy.
10 INSIGNEO NEWS
What is Big Data?
Smartphones, tablets and other
devices allow us to record and publish
increasing amounts of information,
and the amount of data in the world
continues to increase exponentially,
doubling every 18 months. Making
sense of huge quantities of data to
predict trends and behaviour is an
enormous challenge for corporations
including Google and Facebook, and
the tools for management and analysis
of these data are known as Big Data.
These data change rapidly, and
timely analysis of trends is important.
Typically data are not stored in a
single location, but distributed over
many sites, with analytical processes
running independently on multiple data
instances to return an aggregated
outcome. Recently, these concepts have
been extended to the analysis of
data from a range of diverse sources,
including social media and healthcare.
Why is managing Big Data relevant for
healthcare and Insigneo?
The ability to combine healthcare
records with lifestyle data from
social media and mobile devices
has the potential to deliver a highly
personalised representation of an
individual, which would enable
targeted, patient specific interventions
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and therapy. The combination of
Big Data techniques, which capture
emerging trends, when the nature
of the underlying processes cannot
be determined with existing in silico
approaches, has the potential to deliver
tools that provide a more personalised
prediction of outcomes for the patient
and enhance the stratification of
treatment decisions.
To realise this potential requires
a considered approach to data
management: to leverage the most
powerful analytical methods our data
must be well organised from the point
at which it is collected or created. In the
healthcare domain these requirements
bring together the formality required by
informatics with the diversity associated
with the complexity of the human
body and the derived information we
use to assess pathophysiology and
aid diagnosis and treatment. Whilst
information technologies are continually
being developed to address even these
demanding requirements, successful
application of these technologies to
healthcare presents a challenge for
future research.
What are the challenges and how are we
going to meet them?
Our vision for big data in healthcare is
exciting, but poses significant challenges.
HEALTHCARE
RECORDS
LIFESTYLE
DATA
Many of the small-scale biological
processes that underlie disease have
a stochastic component; there are
uncertainties and errors associated with
measurements made in the clinic; and
many clinical records will have missing
data as well as information that is
ambiguous and difficult for a computer
to interpret. On top of these practical
challenges, the increasing volume and
complexity of measured data presents
a significant challenge, particularly in
the area of genomics.
Clearly we are not going to overcome
these challenges all at once. Our
strategy for Big Data in Insigneo is
to develop infrastructure to support
research, that includes appropriate
design of analytical workflows to ensure
the most efficient use of both storage
and computational resources. It is
important for us to adhere to the ethical
and governance standards associated
with handling healthcare data, and
this aspect is critical to the success of
initial research effort and its translation
into clinical practice. The partnership
between the University and STH, and
the inter-sectoral nature of Insigneo
membership, provides a solid foundation
for fundamental research to be aligned
with the requirements of clinical services.
Finally, integration of education and
training in Big Data techniques with
PERSONALISED
MODELS
PATIENT SPECIFIC
TREAMENT
existing research-led teaching of in
silico medicine is essential to ensure the
next generation of researchers have the
skills to excel within the complex domain
of biomedical data-driven simulation.
Where might we be in 5 years time?
Looking forward, we expect to remove
the barriers between the researcher
and state-of-the-art computational
infrastructure and analytical methods,
which operate over data from the level
of the individual to the population as
a whole. This will allow computational
workflows to be informed by, and
contribute to, an evolving body of
curated scientific data, which continually
refines our understanding of human
pathophysiology. A common data
infrastructure for academic and
clinical researchers, in accordance
with appropriate governance, will
allow physicians to draw on a broader
evidence base than ever before to
inform their choice of treatment. We
expect the development of personalised
approaches to healthcare assessment,
diagnosis, stratification and intervention
to increasingly rely on a Big Data
infrastructure, and we look forward to
delivering real benefits by improving
the efficiency of healthcare delivery
and better healthcare provision to the
general public.
INSIGNEO NEWS
18
months
Time taken for
amount of data
in the world to
double
Our vision
for big data
in healthcare
is exciting,
but poses
significant
challenges.
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11
RESEARCHER
Researcher Spotlight:
Damien Lacroix
What is your current role?
As one of the Chairs appointed as part
of the creation of Insigneo, I see my role
as contributing to the development of
the Institute and making it world-leading
in the new area of in silico medicine. As
Director of Research my aim is to increase
the research portfolio of the Institute and
enhance internal collaboration within the
University and between the many different
academics who have some interest in the
development of in silico medicine.
What are you working on at the
moment?
My main research interest is understanding
the effect of mechanical loading onto
the body. In other words, how our daily
physical activity is translated into a series
of mechanical stimuli, which are applied
to our bodies at different anatomical
scales - the organ, tissue, cellular and
molecular levels. Since we are constantly
doing activities, a better understanding of
the influence of loading can enable us to
prevent diseases and create personalised
rehabilitation programmes in the treatment
of neuromusculoskeletal diseases.
Having recently concluded the EC
funded MySpine project, what were its
outcomes and what did it prove about
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the usefulness of in silico modelling in
healthcare?
During this project we were able to
compare the effect of different surgical
treatments on lower back pain and advise
on the best treatment for individual
patients. We were able to predict in a
clinical cohort of 200 patients, whether it
is better for them to receive pain killers
or undergo a surgical treatment. For the
first time, an integrated software platform
could be operated within a real clinical
environment, to help the surgeon make the
best decision to treat a given patient. This
project was a powerful indicator of how
in silico modelling can help in the clinical
decision process and therefore improve the
treatment of diseases.
You have recently started the EPSRCFrontier funded project MultiSim, what
does this project hope to achieve?
This award focuses on the establishment
of a
currently non-existent but
essential computational
platform for
the management of musculoskeletal
disorders.
A generic modelling framework
that involves multi-scale modelling,
unobservable states and variables, and
uncertainty will be designed to address
various neuromusculoskeletal disorders.
I see my
role as
contributing
to the
development
of the
Institute and
making
it world
leading in
the new area
of in silico
medicine
Damien Lacroix is Professor of
Mechanobiology in the Department
of Mechanical Engineering. He
has a first degree in Mechanical
Engineering from the National
Institute of Applied Science (INSA
Lyon, France) and is Director of
Research for the Insigneo Institute.
How significant is the establishment of
the Insigneo Institute in Sheffield?
The Insigneo Institute is unique in its
kind. The integration of modellers
and experimentalists within the same
place, with the active involvement
of clinicians makes this Institute one
of the largest and most integrated
research institutes in the world devoted
to the use of in silico methods for
the diagnosis, prognosis, treatment
planning and monitoring of diseases
in the areas of neuromusculoskeletal,
cardiovasculorespiratory, neurosciences
and oncology. Insigneo hosts some of the
main players of the VPH Community and
therefore the Institute is able to act at
all levels of in silico medicine going from
pre-clinical testing, clinical phase trial,
software deployment and data sharing
within the hospital to clinical assessment
and monitoring of VPH tools. No one else
can achieve such integration.
When not working on in silico models,
how do you unwind?
Family and photography are my two main
activities outside work. I love going to the
Peak Discrict for a walk with my son and
wife and taking pictures.
To read the full interview see www.insigneo.org
INSIGNEO NEWS
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13
LAB FOCUS
InSIDE
INSIGNEO
Inside Sheffield University’s
Pam Liversidge Building,
Insigneo’s state-of-the-art
laboratories are enabling
us to be at the cutting edge
of in silico research.
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Insigneo Laboratories
C+ Floor, Pam Liversidge Building
The C+ laboratory is a unique environment
with specialised equipment, which allows
our researchers to work across the range of
anatomical scales - organ, tissue, cellular and
molecular - when conducting musculoskeletal
research. The brand new laboratory is
fitted with PCR machines, large mechanical
testing machines to compress bone and
cells, fluorescence microscopes, atomic force
microscopes and more.
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15
TIMETABLE
Showcase Timetable
Welcome to the Insigneo Showcase. What will you discover?
Insigneo & Big Data - Why do we
Care?
10.05, Professor Richard Clayton
Richard Clayton will introduce the topic of Big Data,
and explain why the storage and management of large
amounts of different types of data is important for
Insigneo.
Collecting Contextualised Behavioural
Data using everyday Technology
10.15, Professor Fabio Ciravegna
Prof. Dr. Fabio Ciravegna is Professor of Language
and Knowledge Technologies and Head of OAK Group
in the Department of Computer Science. His research
focuses on Information and Knowledge Management, in
his talk he will discuss how we can leverage everyday
technologies to collect contextualised behavioural data
for research purposes.
POLARIS - Polarised and Respiatory
Imaging Sheffield
10.30, Professor Jim Wild
Professor Jim Wild introduces POLARIS - one of
Insigneo’s flagship projects. The team behind POLARIS
are using state-of-the-art techniques developed in
Sheffield to create functional images of the lungs in
patients affected by conditions such as smoking, cystic
fibrosis, emphysema, pulmonary hypertension and
asthma.
The Big Data Panel Debate
11.10, Professor Chris Newman
How can we balance the privacy concerns surrounding
the use of Big Data with its potential for public good?
Chaired by Chris Newman, Professor of Clinical
Cardiology at the University of Sheffield, this discussion
is designed to illuminate some of the most pressing
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issues surrounding Big Data and its use in medicine
today. The panel members are: Pat Lawford, Basil
Sharrack, Mark Taylor, Wendy Tindale, Marco Viceconti
and Steven Wood.
The Emergence of Computer
Aided BioEngineering
13.35, Steve Levine, Dassault Systemes
By its very nature, Bioengineering is a complex
intersection of multiple disciplines, applying engineering
principles to biological systems. DS SIMULIA’s Chief
Strategy Officer, Steve Levine will introduce the Living
Heart Project and discuss its unique approach to
overcoming these challenges.
What a Difference a Donor Makes
14.10, David Reynolds, Sheffield Hospitals Charity
David Reynolds is the Director of the Sheffield Hospitals
Charity, the official NHS Charity serving all the NHS
Foundation Trusts in Sheffield. The Charity invests
between £2-3m annually to make life better for
patients in Sheffield. David will talk about the Charity’s
partnership with Insigneo and the impact it makes
through its grant making and fundraising activities
across South Yorkshire.
VPH-Share
15.40, Professor Rod Hose
After four years of work, VPH-Share is ready to
launch. The online portal is designed to allow users to
quickly develop computational workflows. These chains
of processing tasks allow raw medical information to
be refined into meaningful diagnostic information. By
automating over half the tasks associated with workflow
construction, simple workflows can be running within
minutes.
Insigneo Abstracts:
POLARIS: POLARISED IMAGING
Our cutting edge science
Browse our posters and hear oral
presentations from the best of
Insigneo’s cutting-edge research.
From more than 50 submissions,
from both Insigneo members and
students working in association
with the Institute, this selection is
designed to give you a flavour of
our multi-disciplinary work.
MULTISIM: FRONTIER ENGINEERING
Insigneo Project Stands:
Up close with our research
Discover more about our research
expertise: get hands-on with
VPH-Share’s computing
infrastructure; see examples of
gait analysis at the MultiSim stand
and learn about how they are
developing a multiscale hyper
modelling framework; and much
more…
8.45
09.30
10.00
10.45
11.05
12.30
13.30
14.05
14.45
15.10
15.35
16.00
16.15
Facilities and Education:
VPH-SHARE: SHARING FOR HEALTHCARE
Arrival, Registrations and Coffee
Welcome
Session 1
Coffee Break
Session 2 - Panel Debate
Lunch
Session 3 - Industry Perspective
Session 4
Coffee Break
Session 5
Session 6
Closing Remarks
Exhibition, Drinks Reception & Close
Training the next generation
How will Insigneo help to train
the next generation of in silico
scientists? Discover more about our
Doctoral Training Programme and
the opportunities to study with us.
From engineering to computing
science and medicine, learn about
the wide range of areas where in
silico methods can be applied.
Firth Hall, Firth Court. Exhibition area open
Marco Viceconti, Mike Hounslow, David Throssell, Tony Weetman
Richard Clayton, Fabio Ciravegna, Jim Wild
The Big Data Panel Debate: Public Good v Pricacy
Buffet Lunch. Exhibition area open
Steve Levine, Dassault Systemes SIMULIA
David Reynolds, Commented Posters - Part 1
Commented Posters - Part 2
Rod Hose
Marco Viceconti
Presentation of prize for best abstract
INSIGNEO NEWS
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17
INTERVIEW
An Interview with...
Adriano Henney
We posed the VPH Institute’s new Director with a few pertinent questions
Congratulations on being appointed the new
maintaining this momentum and using it to raise
Director of the VPH Institute! Tell us a bit about
the profile of the Institute. We have to work hard
your background.
to promote our identity and provide a compelling
My first degree was in microbiology, following
reason for industry to become more engaged
which I did a PhD in Medicine, researching
and contribute financially to create a sustainable
aspects of cardiovascular pathology. This was
foundation for the activities we intend to pursue.
the foundation for my
interest in pathophysiology
How do you imagine the
and my first experience of
VPH initiative 10 years from
working across disciplines. My
now?
postdoctoral studies moved
The VPHi has the potential to
me technically from cell
revolutionise medical practice,
biology, through molecular
both directly and through
biology and ultimately to
improvements in the delivery
leading my own molecular
of effective biomedical
genetics group in Oxford.
products. The acceptance of
Fact File
From there, I was recruited
these approaches remains
Name: Adriano Henney
into the pharmaceutical
limited and it will take time
Position: Programme Director
industry where I spent 13
for this to change. We are
of the Virtual Liver Network,
years, before leaving in 2009
on the way to achieving that
Owner of Obsidian Biomedical
to set up independently as a
change, and my hope is that
Consulting Ltd
consultant on projects bridging
within 10 years, examples
Expertise: Cardiovascular
academia and industry.
offering hard evidence of the
genetics, Vascular biology,
value of these approaches will
Systems biology and
What is your vision for the
be sufficiently compelling to
Systems medicine
VPH Institute?
establish VPH technologies in
My personal vision is
routine practice.
that the VPHi should become recognised as
the authoritative, representative voice of the
Do you have a message for our members?
modelling and simulation community engaged in
My message is simply... Be gentle with me and
healthcare research and development. The VPHi
don’t expect too much too fast! I have a lot
has been very active at the European level in
to learn, but I know that I can call the on VPH
advocating a greater focus on the application
community to educate me, fill in the huge gaps in
of in silico medicine approaches in research
my experience and support me in building on the
and health policy. My short term plans focus on
successes achieved under Marco’s leadership.
18 INSIGNEO NEWS
ISSUE 1
SPRING 2015
Image: © 2014, Jürgen Lösel
THE LIVING HEART PROJECT
A TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH INITIATIVE TO REVOLUTIONIZE
CARDIOVASCULAR SCIENCE THROUGH REALISTIC SIMULATION
IF WE APPLY THE POWER OF REALISTIC SIMULATION TO HUMAN MODELING,
WE CAN REVOLUTIONIZE PATIENT CARE.
What if doctors leveraged and relied on the same incredible 3D modeling and realistic simulation technology that the
automotive, aerospace, energy, and hi-tech industries have used for decades to virtually design, test, and validate
products and processes before they have been built or implemented?
Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE® company that provides business and people with virtual universes to imagine sustainable
innovations, has established the Living Heart Project with the aim of making this dream possible for cardiovascular care.
The Living Heart Project was formed to advance the development of safe and effective cardiovascular products and treatments by uniting
engineering, scientific, and biomedical expertise to translate cutting edge science into improved patient care. Through simulation and the
creation of validated models, the project aims to accelerate the use of science to provide personalized, interventional patient care.
Realistically simulating the behavior of a heart is extremely complex and requires a connection of knowledge from multiple domains,
including electrical, mechanical, and fluids.
Over the past three decades, Dassault Systèmes has developed the most advanced modeling and simulation technology available, all of
which is now accessible in a single environment that also enables real-time collaboration between medical and engineering professionals
and robust data management, and security.
To learn more about the Living Heart Project and how you may be able to contribute, visit: www.3ds.com/heart.
FIGURES CORRECT AT TIME OF WRITING
139
MEMBERS
40
CLINICIANS
51
AFFILIATED
PROJECTS
29
DEPARTMENTS
£23
M I L L I O N
RESEARCH
INCOME
4
RESEARCH
AREAS
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