About 12 LABOURS

Over 20 years ago, the Auckland Bioengineering Institute pioneered the Physiome Project.

• Developing computational models of cells, tissues and organs to improve our understanding of human health and disease.
• Investigating how every component in the body, from molecules up to organ systems works as part of the integrated whole.
• Establishing open community standards for the archiving and sharing of reproducible and reusable computational models.

The 12 LABOURS Project brings together this large body of knowledge and extends it to develop personalised physiome models from clinical images, diagnostics data, implantable and wearable devices, leading to improve clinical treatments for disease and facilitating home-based care.

Disease diagnosis often comes too late, as it depends on reporting of symptoms by the individual and can lead to significant interventions. If we could predict a problem early, we could make small interventions to prevent it from becoming serious. Wearable and implantable medical devices can be used for continuous monitoring of physiological symptoms and provide therapeutic intervention. However, interpretation of data from monitoring devices, and their therapeutic application requires knowledge that is much more integrated and personalised than is currently available.

Creating a generic digital human that is then personalised, a ‘digital twin’, will provide better understanding of an individual's physiological processes and any changes that could lead to serious health consequences.

• Enabling medical professionals to perform controlled and repeatable tests to discover how outcomes differ for various interventions leading to rapid selection of optimal interventions for the patient.
• Form a basis from which new strategies are created for treating disease.
  

Development of three technology platforms:

• A framework for personalised Physiome modelling to allow users to combine models, link models across spatial and temporal scales, and to personalise the models.
• A Physiome modelling platform for precision medicine to allow medical professionals to implement personalised Physiome models in a clinical setting.
• Continuous monitoring using workflows that will allow personalised Physiome models that can connect to wearable, implanted and home-based devices to allow a continuous flow of data to update an individual’s personalised model for diagnostic monitoring and predicting therapeutic outcomes.

Five exemplar projects (EPs) to demonstrate healthcare applications of
multiscale biophysically based modelling, by combining multiscale models of multiple organ systems to address complex physiological questions.

• EP1: Pulmonary hypertension: based on coupling of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems to treat pulmonary hypertension.
• EP2: Personalised rehabilitation of upper limb disorders: based on the neuro-musculoskeletal system work 
• EP3: Control of organ function by the autonomic nervous system: based on coupling of work on maternal health and the digestive system the work on mapping the autonomic nervous system.
• EP4: Automated clinical workflows for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment
• EP5: Improve understanding of gut-brain interaction by modelling the fluid transit behaviour of the colon, integrated with existing models of the microbiome