The Virtual Physiological Human: The Physiome Project Aims to Develop Reproducible, Multiscale Models for Clinical Practice.

The Physiome Project was initiated by the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS; www.iups.org) in 1997 to bring multiscale engineering modeling approaches to the physiological interpretation of the wealth of molecular data that was becoming available at that time [1]. The discipline of physiology, which with anatomy underpins medical practice, had lost its traditional central position in the biological sciences (at least from a funding perspective) to molecular biology, despite the very small impact molecular biology has had on the diagnosis and treatment of disease. While diseases and drugs certainly operate at the molecular level, the regulation of genetic transcription and, hence, the expression of proteins (the building blocks of life) are both highly dependent on environmental factors governed by the physical world in which molecular biology operates. Engineering-in particular, the rapidly growing field of bioengineering-is the discipline that has the integrative skills and tools to put the molecular pieces of Humpty Dumpty back together again.