The ISBGroup Blog

There are quite a few public lectures planned for this autumn, and one of the ones I am looking forward to a little bit extra is the MBM workshop, in Gothenburg, on October 15-16, 2020. MBM stands for Modelling in Biology and Medicine, and this is the second edition of the workshop. The workshop started as an initiative by a couple of enthusiastic Ph.D. students at the Math Department at Chalmers/Gothenburg University. But since it turned out so successful, they easily got both the support by the more senior leadership at the department, and enough positive feedback to decide to do a second edition. I really liked attending it last year, both since it was a Swedish workshop on systems biology, which means that it helps foster and grow the Swedish systems biology community, and since they managed to create a nice and cosy athmosphere. Partially because of this, the post-conference informal conversations last year led to me mentioning some of the bigger plans I am working on, which are going to become more public this year.

Those plans involve me combining my science and create careers into one, by doing joint lecture-performances, mixing piano, dancing, and digital twin-based stories. The original plan for this year’s workshop was to do some version of such a lecture-performance at the physical workshop. But since the physical edition had to be cancelled – due to the pandemic – the lecture will be held online. Nevertheless, in the presentation text of me at the home page, my CV covers – for the first time in a scientific event! – both my science and creative careers are mentioned side by side, and as two parts of the same thing. Already this feels really cool! And during the lecture, I plan to say, and probably also show, something short about those new and border-crossing plans in action. The workshop is held completely online, so you will be able to see it, also if you are not living in Sweden. And, later in the autumn, a more proper trailer for the first such lecture-performance will be released. The first proper such lecture-performance is planned be held during the autumn of 2021.

An exciting autumn awaits! And, the workshop is still open for abstract submissions!

We have gotten a new grant! The money this time comes from ELLIIT, which is a joint technology programme for Linköping, Lund, Halmstad University, and Blekinge Institute of Technology. The project we applied for is called “Usable digital twins in healthcare“, and it will focus on solving the many different practical challenges involved in bringing our digital twins into actual clinical practice: involving e.g. legal, technical, and ethical issues. A summary of the project and its main steps is given in the figure below. The funding is 2 MSEK, i.e. 200 kEUR/kUSD over a two-year period.

A new international webinar series on 3R – replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal experiments – is about to start! And we are present with a lecture!

From our group, Gunnar Cedersund and Elin Nyman are members of the National Committee on 3Rs, which also serves as the steering committee for the Swedish 3R center (S3RC). Our S3RC has now joined forces with a few other corresponding national centres, and this has led to the launch of a new webinar series. The first edition of this will take place on Sept 22-24, lunch times i.e. 12.30-13.30 CET. Gunnar will present a lecture on digital twins on the last day, i.e. Sept 24.

This is a great initiative, and I hope it will be the start of more collaborations between the centres!

More info, and sign-up here.

As usual, we have attended the Virtual Physiological Human conference, which this year was given as an eConference. This year, our group was represented with two oral presentations, and three poster presentations. The first oral presentation was held by Gunnar Cedersund, with the title: “Multi-organ and multi-level digital twin models enters the clinic”, and it was similar to the presentation already held at numerous earlier occasions, e.g. at Almedalen, in the Swedish Parliament, at NIH, etc.

The second presentation was of a new project: Belén Casas’ postdoc project on modelling of microphysiological systems. This project is financed by AstraZeneca, who are the ones who do the experiments, in collaboration with the company TissUse. This modelling has allowed us to both understand the available system better, and to create a first translation up to humans. This brings us one step closer to finding a workable replacement for animal experiments regarding research on type 2 diabetes and Nonalcoholic SteatoHepatitis (NASH) in the liver. The postdoc project has been supervised by Gunnar Cedersund and Peter Gennemark (AstraZeneca, but also adjoint associate professor in our group). Since Belen is now away on parental leave, Peter gave the presentation. The three final poster presentations were on digital twins and multi-level modelling (Tilda Herrgårdh), on modelling of fatty acid fluxes in the fat tissue (Kajsa Tunedal), and on a new model for exercise (Antonia Klingsäter). Apart from our own presentations, it was interesting to see that the new ASME V&V40 guidelines from FDA, on usage of modelling in certification, are getting more and more traction. Another interesting presentation was the keynote held by Tarique Hussain, who talked about how he has been using advanced modelling of the heart, to help guide treatment planning of complicated cases in child cardiology.