Peter Coveney: personalising healthcare through the virtual human

The research was covered in Pioneer , a new quarterly magazine from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), which is supporting the work. The article is reproduced below with the kind permission of the EPSRC. What do you do when you get a headache? Some people swear by paracetamol, others claim that only ibuprofen will work and for some aspirin is the key. We are all different and none of us respond in exactly the same way to any one medication. When it comes to more serious medical conditions, such as cancer and HIV, choosing the right medication can be a life and death decision. A new project hopes to improve the odds of this medical lottery, by testing treatments on a 'virtual human' first. The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH), is an EU Framework Programme 7 Initiative.