[...] The aim of Auckland work is to identify and model the network of signal transduction pathways that link changes in blood flow to the changes in material properties of the arterial wall that underlie the growth of celebral aneurysms [...]  Human physiology deals with the integrative function of proteins, carbohydrates and lipids within the approximately 200 cell types and four basic tissue types (muscle, nerve, epithelium and connective tissue) of the organs that make up the 12 organ systems of the human body. A quantitative understanding of how proteins, carbohydrates and lipids contribute to cell and tissue function, in the 109 range of spatial scales from proteins (scale ~1nm) to the whole body (~1m), is dependent on the development of mathematical models [...] In some cases these models deal with so-called 'lumped parameter' systems - where spatial effects are averaged - and in other cases they directly represent the spatial variations in cell or tissue properties. In the first case the models are typically based on systems of ordinary differential equations and algebraic equations, in the second they typically rely on partial differential equations. In both cases there is a need to develop computer languages for describing the structure and mathematical expression of the models, together with associated metadata [...] The IUPS Physiome Project is now closely linked to the euroPhysiome project, or VPH project. In June 2008 a new 'Network of Excellence' (NoE), established under the EU Framework 7 ICT initiative, will begin to help coordinate the development of computational biology in Europe using the modeling standards CellML, SBML and FieldML and the associated set of open source software tools, some of which are now being applied to the @neurIST project (see the full article "CellML and the Physiome Project - contributons to @neurIST", published on the @neurIST Newsletter n. 6).

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@neurIST Newsletter Issue n. 6