PREFACE

Towards the virtual physiological human: mathematical and computational case studies Until recently, much of the investigative effort in the life sciences has been data-gathering orientated, the ‘genetic revolution ’ being an exemplary case. It has become clear in recent years that (i) this data-driven science is not sufficient to understand the function of the incredibly complex biology of interactions from molecular-level to organ-level processes within the human body and (ii) a purely statistical (or evidence based) understanding of health- and disease-related data is not going to allow one fully to apply insight to an individual patient. The virtual physiological human (VPH) initiative is a direction in computational biomedicine that aims to develop a thoroughly data-based framework of methods and technologies that will facilitate the understanding of integrative function from sub-cellular structures, through cells and organs, to the human body as a whole [1]. Many of the methods and technologies needed for this endeavour are model-driven approaches to prediction that have long been used in th