The Virtual Physiological Human initiative saw the funding of 15 projects in the second call of the Seventh Framework Program.  Most of these projects have now completed the negotiation phase, and have kicked-off their activities.  Representatives from each of these projects met in Brussels for the first VPH Concertation meeting. The event was organised by the VPH Network of Excellence, whose core partners steered the discussions and the workgroups activities. The morning plenary session was quite interesting, especially for the presentation of the results of some FP6 projects that are somehow related to the VPH initiative. We were particularly impressed by the results of the ViroLab project, coordinated by Peter Sloot, which even if not completed yet, already demonstrated the incredible potential of integrative research in an area, HIV therapies, of great social relevance.  Not all FP6 projects were showcased; we noticed in particular the absence of the @neurIST project, and of the LHDL project.  This latter omission was somehow noticeable, given that LHDL will soon announce a service for the entire VPH community, Physiome Space, that could solve some of the problems of data sharing.

The afternoon was organised around three parallel work groups. We attended the workgroup #1, which discussed on the perspective of VPH research for the clinical and the industrial practices. The organisers chose a discussion format tested already in the second STEP conference, and which proved to be very effective.  After a short introduction of a topic, some questions were posed to the audience, which then split in groups of four experts.  Each group then made a brief statement on the questions posed.  The debate was of interest, and some elements that emerged were surely original with respect to the consensus reached in the VPH roadmap.  We look forward to see a summary paper or other form of report from this interesting session, hopefully published here on Biomed Town to give it maximum diffusion.

The other two workgroups dealt with Data and Tools, and with Education and Training. Of these we got only the brief summary given by the workgroup rapporteur; however, from these summaries the impression is that the discussion was much less productive than in workgroup #1, and that the conclusions reached were very generic, and in some cases pure re-statements of positions already expressed, sometime with greater breath, in the VPH roadmap. 

Overall the impression was that the meeting did not had sufficient preparation; the preparatory debate on the forums set-up on the VPH NoE web site did not showed a massive participation, which was somehow reflected in the meeting outcomes.  A (biased) comment I can make is that if the forums would have been hosted and advertised on Biomed Town, the level of participation could have been much greater.

As usual for these events, if not for anything else, it was worth to attend for the networking.  We had the opportunity to meet people from every VPH project, and a lot of news ideas came out during coffee breaks and informal conversations.  Still, I wonder if this format is worth to be repeated.  I believe we should rather consider that each VPH project tries to organise at least one or two events of general interest, possibly on the arguments indicated in the VPH roadmap and in the WIRI Agreement.  Some of these events could be highly technical, with hands-on sessions; other could be more in the form of exchange of policies and practices (i.e. how to deal with clinical data from a legal point of view).  The role of the e-health unit could be to ensure that these events are properly spread over time, and that they do not cover arguments too similar.

But the biggest message to take home is that after two years of discussions and hard work, now we can say that the VPH initiative is reality, and I am convinced that soon the first concrete results will appear.

Additional information

-          VPHOP is a Collaborative Integrated Project that is developing simulation-based technology to predict the risk of bone fracture in osteoporosis patients. Co-funded by the European Commission as part of the Seventh Framework Program. The project runs for four years starting from September 2008. Coordinated by Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute, the Project Consortium gathers 19 European Organisations based in Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Iceland. For more information: http://www.vphop.eu.

-          Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute is the most famous Italian research hospital for musculoskeletal diseases.  Located in Bologna, Rizzoli is a public institution, funded by the Emilia Romagna region and the Italian Ministry of Welfare. The excellent clinical units, where more than 150,000 patients are treated every year, are well integrated with nine internationally recognised research laboratories. Over 250 researchers trained as engineers, biologists, physicists, and medical doctors conduct strongly interdisciplinary research on musculoskeletal diseases, with particular attention to the transfer of results to the clinical practice.  For more information: http://www.ior.it/.

-          Marco Viceconti is the coordinator of the VPHOP integrated project, a large European research consortium that is developing simulation-based technology for predicting the risk of bone fracture in osteoporosis patients. Since 1989 he works at the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute where he is currently the Technical Director of the Medical Technology Lab. He is also the Director of the BioComputing Competence Centre. For more information: http://www.ior.it/tecno/.