During the first year, we mainly worked on achieving scientific-technical goals:
1) Multi-scale multi-organ model development
Our initial goal of developing a mechanistic (physics-based) infrastructure for multiscale modelling of various cardiac and cardiopulmonary diseases has seen substantial progress, including the ability to integrate across 0D, 1D and 3D models. The integration of the autonomic nervous system, blood flow and cardiac & respiratory mechanics and hormonal pathways, and drug modulation using energy-preserving methods (e.g. bond graphs) is now useable via online databases and tools accessed via web-browsers. With user feedback, starting with the upcoming training course in Delft in March 2025, these will be refined and improved, but a great deal has been achieved during the first 12 months of VITAL. The next major goal is to ensure that all VITAL researchers are familiar with the infrastructure and can contribute their models of physiological function to this common platform to help interpret the clinical data becoming available later during the project.
2) Sensing biomarkers for dynamic personalisation of virtual human twins
We defined the requirements for the pulse wave analysis and the wearable system development.The CALAMARI system, our multi-modal wearable system for biosignal acquisition in prospective studies, advanced faster than anticipated and will be available in Q1 of 2025. Close interaction with the clinical partners has been established. Device-related documentation and training are provided to the clinical institutions to ensure timely inclusion of the wearable device in the prospective studies.
3) Virtual human twin and model personalisation
First results have been achieved for most of our objectives on model personalization, e.g. the verification benchmarks of cardiac mechanics modelling software have been set up, ran, and published; Cross-talk of software codes between multiple groups (, i.e. TU Delft, ELEM, University of Auckland, King's College London, EPFL, University of Maastricht) is currently being explored, and communication in focus circles is ongoing. First personalisation pipelines have been set up, and sharing of knowledge and know-how will be undertaken during the upcoming VITAL Training School in March 2025 in Delft. First steps towards the development of virtual in silico populations, both in 0D, 1D, and 3D have been started up.Surrogate modelling strategies are being explored and applied within various aspects of the modelling framework.
