History for Osaka_Accord

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**The Osaka Accord on Worldwide Integrative Biomedical Research Cooperation**

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**Preamble**

Biomedical research worldwide saw the emergence in the last few years of research approaches that while named in different ways (Physiome, Virtual Physiological Human, In Silico Medicine, Multiscale Modelling of biomedical systems, etc.) share some fundamental commonalities.  In particular there is recognition that we need technologies and methods that make possible:

- to collect, catalogue, organize, combine, and share with all researchers worldwide observations collected in different laboratories and hospitals, generated using different modalities, and stored in different formats, respecting national and international legal and ethical regulations;

- to enable experts to analyse these observations collaboratively and to develop systemic hypotheses that involve the knowledge of multiple disciplines, formalising them into predictive models based on deductive reasoning;

- to interconnect these predictive models defined at different scales, with different methods and with different level of details so as to generate systemic representations of physiological and pathological processes.

The drivers for these research needs are multiple and diverse.  The most important are:

- Increasing societal demand for a more holistic approach to health and wellness, and for a patient-doctor relationship more and more based on personalised healthcare driven by clinical decisions based on quantitative evidences, that can be explained also through simple deducting reasoning and not only through inductive statistical evidences. 

- Needs related to the biomedical industries, seeking new methods to develop innovative drugs and medical technologies at lower costs while increasing the levels of safety associated with animal and human experimentation. 

- Research needs, mostly related to the necessity of tackling complex problems with team-science approaches, and to the recognition that the biggest questions about the functioning of living organisms require the elucidation of how sub-systems at different dimensional and temporal scales interact with one another to produce the observed processes. 

- Need for a new generation of researchers educated in integrative and truly interdisciplinary perspective

These trends are being captured by various funding agencies worldwide with complex actions including: the "European Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) research initiative":http://www.europhysiome.org/roadmap and the recent launch of a "competitive call for research proposals":http://www.biomedtown.org/biomed_town/VPH/VPHnews/vphcall; the establishment of the Interagency Modeling and Analysis Group (IMAG) "Multiscale Modeling (MSM) Initiative Consortium":http://www.nibib.nih.gov/Research/MultiScaleModeling, and the recent "NIH funding opportunity announcement on Predictive Multiscale Models of the Physiome in Health and Disease":http://www.biomedtown.org/biomed_town/VPH/VPHnews/r01; the Japanese Ministry for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) leading project "Biosimulation":http://www.lp-biosimulation.com/english/index.shtml, and the creation of the "Global Centre of Excellence in In silico medicine":http://www.mei.osaka-u.ac.jp/gCOE/english/index.html  in Japan; the launch of the Virtual Mechanical Human large scale project in China; the e-Organ project in Korea. 

These important efforts have considerable potential to produce significant opportunities for synergistic cooperation and collaboration across countries around the world, including:

- The creation of conditions where observations, tools, technologies are organised to be accessible by every researcher in the world, regardless of geo-political considerations

- An optimization of the available resources ensuring at the same time that all relevant aspects are effectively covered

The international research community is well aware of these opportunities, and it has been repeatedly calling for better mechanisms to support a true worldwide approach to this emerging type of biomedical research. An example comes from the World Integrative Research Initiative agreement, signed by the leaders of some pertinent research projects worldwide, that state a collective commitment to pursue a precise list of common goals.

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**Statement of Declaration**

The undersigned experts, convened in Osaka, Japan, on 8 December 2007, agree to explore all possible means and opportunities available to promote global cooperation in the area of Integrative Biomedical Research, in order to fulfill the needs described above on a global worldwide scale, through the collaborative pursuit of common goals as, for example, those reported in the "WIRI Agreement":http://www.biomedtown.org/biomed_town/VPH/wiri/WIRIAgreement that is provided in Annex #1.