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Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
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Mathematical models in physiology

Published:22 March 2006https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2006.1757

    Abstract

    Computational modelling of biological processes and systems has witnessed a remarkable development in recent years. The search-term (modelling OR modeling) yields over 58 000 entries in PubMed, with more than 34 000 since the year 2000: thus, almost two-thirds of papers appeared in the last 5–6 years, compared to only about one-third in the preceding 5–6 decades.

    The development is fuelled both by the continuously improving tools and techniques available for bio-mathematical modelling and by the increasing demand in quantitative assessment of element inter-relations in complex biological systems. This has given rise to a worldwide public domain effort to build a computational framework that provides a comprehensive theoretical representation of integrated biological function—the Physiome.

    The current and next issues of this journal are devoted to a small sub-set of this initiative and address biocomputation and modelling in physiology, illustrating the breadth and depth of experimental data-based model development in biological research from sub-cellular events to whole organ simulations.

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