BioJapan 2012 was held for the 14th time since its inception in 1986, and is one of the largest bio-related exhibitions in Japan, with over 500 exhibitors from Japan and abroad, ranging from venture companies/universities/research institutes with the latest technologies to major companies. PhysioDesigner was exhibited in two booths, one at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University and the other at Osaka University’s New Academic Field.

In the New Academic Field, experimental and computational results from the molecular level to the electrical activity level of the heart were displayed, with PhysioDesigner in particular taking up a large part of the exhibit space. Among the 50 units in the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, four units were represented by the Open Biology Unit, which exhibited the results of research and development in PhysioDesigner, Flint K3, Docking simulation system, iPathways+ and iPathways+. The PhysioDesigner was the focus of the exhibit. Flint K3 is a cloud-enabled simulation system for the Flint simulator, which enables high-performance simulations of models created with PhysioDesigner to be run from anywhere.
Thus, PhysioDesigner was presented in two different booths, and was treated as an important application.

On October 11, a seminar was held by Professor Hiroaki Kitano of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, who represented the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology and gave a lecture on the overall applications under development as drug discovery support technology, including PhysioDesigner. The lecture covered PhysioDesigner for creating hierarchical models at the biological level, the simulator Flint, Flint K3, a cloud-enabled Flint, CellDesigner for creating models at the subcellular level, iPathways+ for sharing pathway models online, and the applications of iPathways+ for online sharing of pathway models, and the Garuda Alliance to enhance the overall operability of these applications. With these technologies, it is now possible to simulate the entire systemic metabolic circulation from the molecular to the bio-level. And a project to test the cardiotoxicity of anticancer drugs is underway in collaboration with the U.S. FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration), Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Osaka University’s New Academic Area, SBI (Systems Biology Institute), and the University of Tokyo Hospital, The project is expected to be published in February of next year, and we can see that PhysioDesigner is becoming an increasingly important part of the project.

In addition, the models that PhysioDesigner will handle in the future will become so large that a high-performance computer such as the “K computer” will be needed to run the simulations. The K computer was on display at the RIKEN booth, and development of a K computer-compatible version of Flint, a simulator, has begun for the multilevel simulations involved in PhysioDesigner, which is expected to contribute toward predictive medicine. Once completed, the simulator will be able to perform massively parallel simulations of arbitrary models developed on PhysioDesigner on the K computer using Flint. This is a very innovative idea and technology, considering that currently it is necessary to write special programs for the K computer. It will make it possible to use the K computer more easily in a technical sense.
PhysioDesigner continues to contribute and develop in various fields for the development of integrative life sciences.

Exhibit booth of Osaka University New Academic Field

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Related Links

BioJapan2012
1. PhysioDesigner
2. Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
3. New Academic Area at Osaka University
4 .CellDesigner
5. Garuda Alliance