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The ISBGroup Blog

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Here you can read about everything that's happening in the ISB Group.

Keynote lecture at the 7th VPH Summer School – Barcelona, June 5-9, 2023

Uncategorised Posted on Tue, April 04, 2023 07:33:00

Join the VPH (Virtual Physiologocal Human) summer school in Barcelona, June 5-9, 2023. This summer school includes 15 morning lectures, one honorary VPH lecture, and a lot of networking opportunities. Gunnar will talk about about the digital twins, so don’t miss it!

Last day to register is 21 of May, and you find more information HERE


M4-health and digital twins: bring a digital copy of yourself with you throughout your health journey 

Keynote Lecture, Wednesday June 7th, 2023, 09:30-11:00

Abstract: For the last 20 years, Cedersund has developed mechanistic mathematical models for all of the main organs in the human body: heart, liver, fat, brain, etc. Lately, these models have combined into an interconnected model for the body as a whole. This interconnected model can be made specifically for each individual, and is then called a digital twin. This digital twin technology employs a hybrid approach, which combines the mechanistic simulation models with machine learning and bioinformatics models. This allows a patient, doctor, or other end-user to look inside the body of a patient, as it is now, ranging from the whole-body to the intracellular level. This also allows for simulations of different future scenarios, ranging from ms to years, and can simulate e.g. the risk of a stroke, depending on choice of diets, exercise, and certain medications. The models are thus of an M4-nature: multi-level, multi-timescale, mechanistic, and multi-organ. The focus on this talk will be on how we systematically test mechanistically hypothesis on the intracellular and organ levels, using mechanistic modelling, optimization, and predictions with uncertainty – followed by corresponding model-designed experiments. I will also to some extent go through how we assemble the different organ sub-models together into the integrated digital twin, which in itself is a modelling problem, and how we then put all of this into a series of different eHealth apps.

BiosketcheGunnar Cedersund (https://liu.se/en/employee/gunce57) heads a cross-disciplinary research group at the Department of Biomedical Engineering (IMT) at Linköping University. The heart of this group (15+ people) does hybrid mathematical modelling, combining machine learning with mechanistic small- and large-scale models. These models are developed using both pre-clinical and experimental data of various types, which are collected both by experimentalists and clininicians within the same group, and by numerous collaborators. These models are made available for preventive and patient-centric care, as well as for drug development and medical pedagogics, using innovative eHealth technologies. This is made possible, e.g., via the fact that Cedersund heads the 6MEuro EU project STRATIF-AI, which brings his digital twins into healthcare for all phases of stroke (prevention, acute treatment, and rehabilitation), using a series of different apps, which all are connected to the same backend.



Digital twins to be tested in real health care environments

Uncategorised Posted on Mon, March 27, 2023 09:19:48

Digital twins will now be tested in real health care environments, in an EU-financed project. Gunnar is the project manager of STRATIF-AI, which has been granted SEK 65 million over a four-year period by Europe Horizon (the European Commission). The project is linked to stroke research, but the digital twins method is expected to have many different applications.

Read more about the project HERE



BME@LiU 2023 – Register Now

Uncategorised Posted on Mon, March 20, 2023 07:00:00

BME@LiU 2023 is a conference day filled with activities to highlight the research conducted at Linköping University (LiU) in the field of biomedical engineering (BME).

Biomedical Engineering, or MedTech, lies at the intersection of many of LiUs strength and strategic areas. It involves development of state-of-the-art technologies such as biosensors, medical imaging, AI, eHealth, visualization, with many applications in Life Sciences, e.g. circulatory and metabolic diseases, inflammation, neurological diseases and cancer.

BME@LiU is a day filled with activities related to the field of biomedical engineering. From invited and contributed talks, to posters, exhibitions, and mingling. These activities reach out to all researchers, companies, organizations, students and clinicians who support, contribute to, or utilize BME technologies.

If you would like to have an oral presentation, submit abstracts before March 27

BME@LiU 2023

When: April 20, 08.30 – 17.00

Where: Norra Entrén, Campus US and via Zoom

Read more and register here https://liu.se/en/research/bme-conference-2023



Sign up: Workshop on Modelling in Biology and Medicine (MBM 2023)

Uncategorised Posted on Tue, March 07, 2023 13:39:24

Welcome to MBM 2023!  

We are pleased to invite you to our fourth Workshop on Modelling in Biology and Medicine (MBM 2023) on the 15-17th of May.  We aim to gather all young researchers in Sweden working on modelling of biological systems. Our ambition is to give all participating PhD students and Postdocs the opportunity to present their work through an oral presentation or a poster. Further, we wish to provide an insight into how modelling in biology and medicine is practiced in academia and industry.  

The workshop will be held in both plenary presentation sessions for larger talks as well as in smaller sessions for e.g. poster presentations. You can participate at MBM 2023 by  

  • giving a plenary talk,  
  • presenting a poster   
  • or simply as an observer  

The workshop will be in-person at Linköping University, Campus US. 

When: 15-17th of May 2023  
Where: Linköping 

Why: Bringing together young researchers in Sweden working on the border of mathematics, biology, and medicine  

How: Oral presentation, poster, or as an observer  
Abstract submission: https://forms.gle/jHNrg1QM6bGQhmx9A, deadline 14th of April 
Register: Registration will open soon 

More informationhttps://mbm.systemsbiology.se/   



The paper titled “A multi-scale in silico mouse model for diet-induced insulin resistance” has been published in the Biochemical Engineering Journal

Uncategorised Posted on Fri, March 03, 2023 14:40:25

We recently published a paper detailing mechanisms of insulin signaling and type 2 diabetes at multiple levels in rat adipocytes. In this paper, we present a model that can simulate weight changes on a wholebody level, and propagate the effect of weight related insulin resistance down to the cellular and tissue level. 

You find the link to the full paper HERE



2023 continue to be great – a second publication in PLOS Computational Biology

Uncategorised Posted on Tue, January 10, 2023 08:30:00

Our work “A quantitative model for human neurovascular coupling with translated mechanisms from animals”, previously available at bioRxiv, has now been published in PLOS Computational Biology. In this manuscript we explore if qualitative behaviors of the Neurovascular coupling (NVC), found in different species and data sets, can be applied to the model simulations of other data. Below follows a slightly more detailed summary of the manuscript.

The neurovascular coupling (NVC) is the basis for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), since the NVC connects neural activity with the observed hemodynamic changes. This connection is highly complex, which warrants a model-based analysis. However, even though NVC-data from several species and many relevant variables are available, a mathematical model for all these data is still missing. Herein, we combine experimental data from mice, monkeys, and humans, to develop a comprehensive model for NVC. Importantly, our new approach to modelling propagates the qualitative insights from each species to the subsequent analysis of data from other species. In mice, we unravel the role of different neuronal sub-populations when producing a biphasic response to prolonged sensory stimulations. The qualitative role of these sub-populations is preserved when analysing primate data. These primate data add knowledge on the interplay between local field potential (LFP) and vascular changes. Similarly, these pre-clinical qualitative insights are propagated to analysis of human data, which contain additional insights regarding blood flow and volume in arterioles and venules, during both positive and negative responses. This work illustrates how data with complementary information from different species can be combined, so that qualitative insights from animals are preserved in the quantitative analysis of human data.

You can read the full article HERE



Celebrating 2023 with new a publication in PLOS Computational Biology

Uncategorised Posted on Tue, January 03, 2023 11:32:57

We are pleased to announce that our manuscript entitled “Mechanistic model for human brain metabolism and its connection to the neurovascular coupling” have recently been accepted for publication in PLoS Computational Biology. In this manuscript we present a mechanistic model for the human cerebral metabolism based on magnetic resonance spectroscopy data. We have also connected this model to our previously published model for the neurovascular coupling. Below follows a slightly more detailed summary of the manuscript. 

The neurovascular and neurometabolic couplings are highly central for several clinical imaging techniques since these frequently use blood oxygenation (the BOLD signal) as a proxy for neuronal activity. This relationship is described by the highly complex neurovascular and neurometabolic couplings, which describe the balancing between increased metabolic demand and blood flow, and which involve several cell types and regulatory systems, which all change dynamically over time. While there are previous works that describe the neurovascular coupling in detail, neither we nor others have developed connections to corresponding mechanistic models for the third aspect, the metabolic aspect. Furthermore, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) data for such modelling readily is available. In this paper we present a minimal mechanistic model that can describe the metabolic response to visual stimuli. The model is trained to describe experimental data for the relative change in metabolic concentrations of several metabolites in the visual cortex during stimulation. The model is also validated against independent validation data, that was not used for model training. Finally, we also connect this metabolic model to a detailed mechanistic model of the neurovascular coupling. Showing that the model can describe both the metabolic response and a neurovascular response simultaneously. 

You can find the article HERE!

Overview of the modelling work presented A. A table summary of different models and what aspects of the neurovascular coupling they cover. B. A schematic overview of how this work connects pre-existing models for the neurovascular coupling with a description for the cerebral metabolism and how this new interconnected model can be used for informative simulations. C: A detailed illustration of the metabolism model precented in this work. Neuronal activity triggers increased consumption of glucose, which triggers downstream signaling cascades of different metabolites, which can be captured using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). D. A schematic illustration of the modelling cycle used to develop a minimal model.


Today: Medical Digital Twins in Sweden

Uncategorised Posted on Tue, December 06, 2022 12:41:07

When: 6th of December

Where: Granitsalen, north entrence, campus US, Linköping university

Or join on zoom: https://liu-se.zoom.us/j/63058145097



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