Integrative Systems Biology

Since the establishment of ISB group (in 2009), we have developed all of our organ models with the long-term goal that they should become a part of our multi-level whole-body models.

Our modular approach to connecting organ models with one another was first presented in (Nyman, 2011). The basic idea is to define the input-output profile for each organ, and then have different versions of each organ model, which all fulfill these input-output profiles.

In practice, the best way to characterize these input-output profiles is to measure them directly. This can be done using so-called arteriovenous difference data (AV-data). Such AV-data measures both the arterious blood going into an organ and the venous blood leaving the organ. In other words, using such AV-data, we have experimental time-curves describing what each organ is experiencing as input (the arterial blood), and what each organ is doing with the blood (the difference between the arterial and venous blood). We can then construct a simple top-level model, where we have minimal organ models for each organ, that still agree with these AV-data, and which can communicate with one another, based on these input-output profiles.

After this, each new organ model can be included in the big multi-level model, either by including it as a sub-model to an existing organ model, or by updating the entire organ-model.