Throughout the discussions held at the VPH Square, the STEP Consortium members have reached consensual definitions on Physiome vs Virtual Physiological Human.

Physiome: the quantitative and integrated description of the functional behaviour of the physiological state of an individual or species.

All Physiome-related projects managed by European researchers have been gathered under the umbrella of the STEP: a Strategy for the EuroPhysiome project.  STEP aims to coordinate the european efforts toward the development of the Virtual Physiological Human.

Virtual Physiological Human: shared reasource formed by a federation of disparate but integrated computer models of the mechanical, physical and biochemical functions of living human body in both physiological and pathological conditions.

This goal is coherent with those set by the international Physiome Project.

VPH Models are both descriptive and predicticve.

• Large collections of anatomical, physiological and pathological data stored in digital format
• Predictive simulations developed from these collections
• Services aimed to support the researchers in the creation and maintenance of these models
• Services aimed to empower clinical, industrial and societal users in the use of the VHP resource