16 replies to this topic

[ShadowX]

Forgive me if this is an old or I’ve heard this idea before. I was not aware.

I have often wondered with all are computer and programming abilities why nobody seem to ever mention making a Human Body Computer Simulation. We have universities simulation weather predictions and particle collisions and space and what not but I’ve never hear anything about "us".

I am not a programmer or a computer modeler. I’ve tried belief me.

I’ve always envisioned someone making a transparent human body. Programming bacteria and how the body functions blood cells, cell division, DNA, RNA, Ribosome, Blood vessels, organs.

If we could just come up with what basic knowledge of the human body we have right now and put it into a simulation that can be updated via a mainframe. We do know enough to get a basic computer simulation running. It would be a wonderful learning tool and with hope the possibility of computer experiment simulations on a human body in the distant future. To imagine a human body simulation running, everything we know about what happens in the body going through this simulations, a cataloged of viruses and bacteria with visual and readable explanations as to how they effect the body and how they are treated.

There are so many possibilities, Different versions of the same simulations can be done, and you could have a surgery version where students and real doctors can perform standard surgery on a real human body simulation or just a head or leg depending on what’s of interest.

It could be put on the web to every Ipad as an APP. Controlled and updated by non-other than the "Immortality Institute". With it as an Ipad app, students could perform an already standard surgery in a simulation right in their hands. They could have access to the Immortality Institute updates and information. Not only doctors, patents, students, dentist, freelancers and random people around the world could see use this and everyone could benefit from it.

It could explain how to mend broken bones. How to use the local herbs in your location if you’re stuck in the wild or lost and need to treat yourself.

The possibilities are huge to say the least.
But it only works best when you can connect the world and their knowledge together and constantly update it under repeatable factual knowledge we learn and know on the human body.


I just hope someone realize there is a huge benefit and the possibilities to make a huge profit at least in the regards of education and to support further project.



It could hold the futures, Medical Education, Research and Knowledge. All at the tips of your fingers.

[cathological]

Because at the moment nobody can even get simulations of protein folding right.

[niner]

Cathological is on the right track, although TBH we've made some pretty good progress in protein folding. However, we just don't know anywhere near enough about the full workings of the human body, nor do we have sufficiently accurate simulation methodology to make this any sort of slam dunk. On the other hand, large scale biological simulation is a really interesting idea. People have been working on it for about 20 years. Simulations Plus is one company doing this that's been around for a while.

[cathological]

Anyways what you're talking about is called bioinformatics.

[albedo]

As I wrote also HERE, a lot relies on gathering sufficient human and financial resources. You might be interested to follow the Virtual Physiological Human project which "aims to help support and progress European research in biomedical modeling and simulation of the human body. This will improve our ability to predict, diagnose and treat disease, and have a dramatic impact on the future of health care, the pharmaceutical and medical device industries."

Europe is moving forward boldly with their FET Flagship Projects (will get about 2.5b$ funding over 10 years for 2 projects out of 6 finalists) with key decisions next year !

If selected and in particular, projects such as the Human Brain Project and IT Future of Medicine will have a huge impact on the life extension, anti-aging and disease prevention research.

HBP is aiming to "create the informatics, modeling and supercomputing technologies required to build biologically detailed models of the complete human brain. Such models could serve as the basis for new diagnostic tools and treatments for brain disease, new interfaces to the brain, a new class of low energy technologies with brain-like intelligence, and a new generation of brain-enabled robots"

ITFoM. "This is the first time that huge IT implications of worldwide individualized patient care will be addressed in combination with genomics and medical requirements. The project outcomes will enable calculation of health, disease, therapy and its effects for individual patients. These may revolutionize our health care with enormous (i) benefits for health (prevention, diagnosis and therapy), (ii) reduction in cost by individualising combinations of a limited number of drugs, and (iii) new commercial opportunities in IT, analytics and health care."

Detailed information at http://www.fet11.eu/

[brokenportal]

ShadowX
This is an interesting concept, and could help a lot like you say.

Will you go through niner and albedo's links there and see what you might find that relates the most to what your talking about?

Also, ask around and see if any of them run, or know of any distributed computing programs related to the body in a more comprehensive way like this.

If you cant find a project that you think relates directly enough then get the names of some people that work with related things that you think could do this.

There are a variety of ways that we or side groups of us could consider getting involved. We need this kind of further information first though.

[InquilineKea]

Interesting discussion: http://www.physicsfo...ad.php?t=466253

[Danail Bulgaria]

ShadowX, consider starting a GNU software project for the Human Body Computer Simulation. You may go to SourceForge to understand how to start such a project. Then browse some forums - post the idea for GNU Human Body Computer Simulation in forums for programming languages, forums for biology and forums for bioinformatics. Search for people, who need such a software, do not want to pay for that software even though they need it, and who have some knowledge allowing them to do some parts of the software. Once You gather enough entusiasts the idea will start developing by itself from the many programmers, biology and bioinformatics specialists who need the software. If You succeed, please come back to this topic and post me a thank you reply

[Mind]

Here is some software in development to simulate complex biological systems: e-cell

[Tuk Tak]

1)Jülich neuroscientist Katrin Amunts has begun work on a detailed atlas of the brain which involved slicing one into 8,000 parts which were then digitalized with a scanner.

Makram added: ‘It is not impossible to build a human brain. We can do it in just over 10 years.

‘This will, when successful, help two billion people annually who suffer from some type of brain impairment.’

The project has already created an artificial neocortical column which is unique to mammals

2)Regulatory DNA sequences such as promoters or splicing sites control gene expression and are important for successful gene prediction

3)The study of the brain and the regulatory DNA will create a memory in the new body.

[Santos]

...maybe more than simulation we need to scan the human body and brain in order to preserve and reproduce our identity and individuality either in organic (cloning) or inorganic (robotic) systems. Scanning the brain should be not only morphologically (neuronal structure and connections); should be of course focus too on each brain physiology in order to save each personality

[Avatar of Horus]

To start there is a related topic from the Computer Science section, here:
Simulating the human body on a computer

I too imagined a similar thing, and I think this is a great idea and an important project. So, as I can do computer programming, I would like to join to and help with this.

Some of my thoughts about it:

I imagine it as a multi-layer program, with the following interconnected levels:
1) atomic and molecular
2) cell nucleus, DNA, RNA, proteins, chromatin structures, i.e. the molecular biology, epigenetic, transcrition, gene expression and DNA methylation patterns, and the like.
3) cell, with cell organelles, like mithocondria, and surface markers
4) tissue, with various cell colonies and layers
5) organs, the various tissues together
6) organism, the organs together

and with further extensions like:
ex-vivo, in vitro cell culture and tissue simulating,
3D virtual laboratory,
a pharmacological search module, for molecular interaction and drug discovery,
and eventually an Artificial Intelligence module, which not only stores and presents the data, but actually can do research with them.

Even one without programming skills could help with such a project, as it only requires biology and mathematical knowledge, because in reality it is a mathematical model of the biological processes, which only needs the data in the form of numbers and the various equations for the computations with them.

Actually I've already started to create such a biological simulation system for myself, to help with my learning and research.
I also started coding the program and named it:
BioSimulator
its logo is


I use C/C++ in Windows, with Microsoft Visual Studio, and Direct X.

I already completed the 1st layer, the program can read data files and present them in atomic and molecular level in 3D.
Here are some of its graphics:
the four molecules of the DNA, based on MDL Molfiles:


But I currently jumped to coding the in vitro cell culture and tissue part, because I am doing research on that subject. It would be the cell and tissue culture simulating module of the program. A cell:

I am currently designing a data structure for the cells and tissues and building a cell database with a list of the cell types from here:
Human_cell_types http://en.wikipedia....uman_cell_types
to simulate their interactions with each other and their media/environment.

In graphics it's still rather simplistic but I just started it and I'd like to focus first on the functionality.
But I've already collected some pictures from the Internet for inspiration and to help imagine and see what I want to create. Here:
a liver tissue structure


a cell structure


human body

I may put some more of them in a later post.


I don't know but I think and also read it here and there, that such a simulation and pharma research program could be expanded to a @home project like the Seti and Folding, with a name like
BioSim@home, or MedicSim, or MedRes, or something similar.

If some of you have any ideas and suggestions feel free to tell it, I'd like to hear them.

Edited by Avatar of Horus, 03 April 2013 - 03:07 PM.

[Mind]

This project idea is related. It would be more granular at first, then become a more advanced simulation as time progresses. It would specifically focus on aging.

We already have some programmers working on this and would be thrilled if you could offer some help. Just let me know.

[Avatar of Horus]

This project idea is related. It would be more granular at first, then become a more advanced simulation as time progresses. It would specifically focus on aging.

We already have some programmers working on this and would be thrilled if you could offer some help. Just let me know.

Yes. I already read through that topic before, but my programming skills don't cover those specific subparts, but possibly some paralles can be established between these two related projects. Anyway you could give my programming specifications to that project's lead programmer, these: 'C/C++ in Windows, with DirectX, 3D, and some html/php', and if a role can be found there for me with these, I possibly can help some.

[Avatar of Horus]

This project idea is related. It would be more granular at first, then become a more advanced simulation as time progresses. It would specifically focus on aging.

We already have some programmers working on this and would be thrilled if you could offer some help. Just let me know.

Yes. I already read through that topic before, but my programming skills don't cover those specific subparts, but possibly some paralles can be established between these two related projects. Anyway you could give my programming specifications to that project's lead programmer, these: 'C/C++ in Windows, with DirectX, 3D, and some html/php', and if a role can be found there for me with these, I possibly can help some.

A quote from that topic called Aging biomarkers schema:

... Maybe you could take a look at the Denigma effort to create "data units" to support an aging graphic/schematic.

Also see this write-up of the Denigma Graph Visualization. It does an excellent job of describing the comprehensive aspects of this project as discussed in this thread (and at the recent Skype meeting. It is a big task. All help is appreciated.

here is the home page of this collaboration:
http://www.denigma.d...ollaboration/30

[ShadowX]

The years go by and somehow I see a lingering idea continue on in other peoples minds. 

 

In 2011 I started this topic, 10 days have passed and 3 years on top of that since I bothered to post on this topic. 

 

I have no medical knowledge, no programming knowledge, actually I just got my bachelors in business administration with a concentration in accounting. Working on that masters I guess. 

 

Its strange to read my words from so long ago and see others little by little continuing the conversation. Its been a while and I guess its my turn again to say something.

 

This idea is still a good one and a valid one, it has a lot of applications and possibilities. I was watching a video today of some group in china working on modified goggles, that would record well everything and on top of that it would tell you in text that you were looking at a flower and then it would identify it. It made me think back to maybe in the next 50 years my future will be present. I will see doctors and people using apps on a phone or tablet to analyze real objects and life to help them, eat, treat, heal. 

 

I just want to say, thank you, you may never see this but I know someone is going to make a full encompassing program that will help, teach and save peoples lifes much more than we do now. 

[Jose_LER]

I think the idea of simulating the body using a computer and artificial inteligence to better understand how it works, it's a fabulous idea.

I've also thought about that some time ago. I think the main obstacle is to find new monitoring hardware to get as much as possible information from the body.

Blood parameters, DNA, body composition... and a lot more of different things.