As of today, the level of uptake of in silico trials, e.g. the use of modeling and simulation for the development and de-risking of new medical products, is still fairly limited.
At the CompBioMed conference 2021, In Silico World partners held a special session on accelerating the adoption of in silico trials. This is the first example of a joint commitment between the two projects as a contribution to both lowering the barriers to the adoption of in silico technologies and the opportunities of High-Performance Computing that could enable in silico medicine solutions to achieve impressive feats.
Many experts from our consortium discussed different topics that address specific areas of in silico technologies and the actions the community can undertake to promote their full adoption.
Our coordinator, Prof. Marco Viceconti, opened the session with a theoretical framing for models as a foundation to establish Good Simulation Practices, while Prof. Francesco Pappalardo from the University of Catania explained how this leads to certification and qualification of in silico trials solutions.
Then the session hosted examples of studies using modeling and simulation methodologies e.g. for the generation of virtual patients for Osteoporosis Drug Phase III clinical trials (by Dr. A. La Mattina from the University of Bologna), for Multiple Sclerosis treatments (by Dr. G. Russo from the University of Catania), and for the simulation of aneurysm flow diversion treatments (by Dr. B. Csippa from Budapest University of Technology and Economics).
The session then closed with the talks of Prof. Liesbet Geris (KU Leuven) and Dr. R. De Michele (University of Bologna) and some considerations and discussions on the importance of establishing a community of experts and stakeholders around in silico medicine to bring both innovation and consensus in the field.
Dr. Roberta De Michele and Prof. Liesbet Geris will focus on the importance of our community with:
- Innovation adoption: the role of a Community of Practice
- Insilicomedicine: bringing the community together and the field forward
One of our goals is to respond effectively to the lack of a trained workforce on the use of In Silico Trials. Prof. Jos Vander Sloten from our partner KU Leuven put a focus on this topic with his talk “Literacy, education, re-training on In Silico Trials.”
Our project sees the participation of the world’s leading scientists, clinicians, and companies on in silico medicine working together with a large multi-stakeholder advisory board to provide several resources that will permanently lower barriers to a wider adoption of In Silico Trials.
What we see is a future where medical products, thanks to the use of modeling and simulation, are developed much faster and with the highest possible safety standards.
