{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1", "title": "chem-bla-ics", "description": "Chemblaics (pronounced chem-bla-ics) is the science that uses open science and computers to solve problems in chemistry, biochemistry and related fields.", "home_page_url": "https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/", "feed_url": "https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/2026/06/06/the-launch-of-the-virtual-human-platform.json", "icon": "https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/assets/images/chem-bla-ics_logo.png", "language": "en", "authors": [ { "name": "Egon Willighagen", "url": "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7542-0286", "_orcid": "0000-0001-7542-0286" } ], "items": [ { "id": "https://doi.org/10.59350/s784p-s1y68", "url": "https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/2026/06/06/the-launch-of-the-virtual-human-platform.html", "title": "The launch of the Virtual Human Platform", "content_html": "

\"Screenshot\nNine days ago, the VHP4Safety project\n(see these posts)\nheld a launch event in Utrecht for the\nVirtual Human Platform (VHP), a key result of the\nDutch Research Agenda (NWA,\nfrom the Dutch Nationale Wetenschapsagenda). Despite the name, the NWA is just one part\nof the NWO funding mechanisms, but like the NWO Open Science programme\nit is funding with a specific purpose. And the purpose of the NWA is to answer\nresearch and societal questions that the Dutch people together defined and a public\nconsultation (many years ago). VHP4Safety is answering to one of those questions.

\n\n

Co-creation

\n\n

The project is still running another few months, but the launch last week\ngives us the opportunity to include feedback from the stakeholders from the Dutch\nsociety, many of which have been involved in the project via designathons and\nhackathons (see doi:10.14573/altex.2407211).

\n\n

The VHP4Safety platform is a co-creation created by most of the people working\non the VHP4Safety grant. Some people focused on innovation and education (RL3),\nothers on the regulatory questions (RL2), and some on the development of the\nplatform (RL1). The research line 1 (RL1) included a work package on the\ntechnological development, work package 1.1, and that was led by Maastricht\nUniversity (Ozan and me) and the Applied University of Utrecht (Dr. Marc Teunis).\nThis project would not be together without the leadership by\nProf. dr. ir. Juliette Legler, Dr. Cyrille Krul, and Prof. dr. Anne Kienhuis\n (see this video).

\n\n

Not just technology

\n\n

I have to give a huge shout out to Ozan whom had the daunting task\nto set up something like OpenRiskNet (doi:10.1016/j.toxlet.2018.06.617),\na project with at least twice as much\nfunding for operating and documenting just the technical platform, but also\nhelp other partners getting their work on the platform. Also shout outs to \nLuc who in our group first explored how to translate the OpenRiskNet platform\nto VHP4Safety with kubernetes from\nwhich we concluded that that was not an option for us. And to Sean in our group\nwho introduced us to Docker Swarm.

\n\n

But that is just one aspect of the technological layers. The design outlined\nin the original proposal is based on earlier projects, including OpenRiskNet,\neNanoMapper, OpenRiskNet, Open PHACTS, NanoCommons, SbD4Nano and many others.\nIt is based on open standards developed and/or adopted by\nELIXIR Europe projects and many other organisations.

\n\n

And then we have not even covered the content on the platform.

\n\n

A virtual human

\n\n

Building full virtual human is an ambition. Many digital twins\ncapture just one part of human biology. For safety assessment we need many models,\ndata from experiments, and knowledge bases. And we need a clear narrative that\ndescribes how those isolated solutions are integrated so that regulatory questions\ncan be answered. That co-created combination is the launched virtual human platform.

\n\n

Underlying the VHP is a good bit of open science, though it also integrated \nproprietary solutions, currently needed to be able to replace animal testing.\nAnd our modular co-creation resulted in many separate git repositories.\nThis allows distributed development models and all contributors to take ownership\nof the development of their contributions. Marc and Frank introduced a agile computing\napproach that we adopted to guide the development of the full platform.

\n\n

There is so much to write up about the platform (and we will), but for now I want\nto highlight a few essential git repositories underlying the 1.0 version of the\nplatform we launched last week (along with the number of contributors in the past two years):

\n\n\n\n

This includes Aniek, Fabian,\nIsaac, Ivo,\nJavier, Jente,\nLinde, Marvin,\nMyrthe, Saad,\nShakira, and Youp,\nin addition to the earlier named Ozan and\nMarc.

\n\n

This excludes the many contributions via the designathons and hackathons that are\nbehind many of the commits to these repositories. And this also excludes the\nmany other source code repositories for tools\nand services developed and made available on this VHP, with even more researchers.

\n\n

Very much aware of all the work that is still ahead of us, I am happy with the\nimportant milestone of this release. Thank you to\neveryone who contributed to this co-creation,\nall the involved institutes,\nNWO for the funding, and the Dutch\npublic for the important NWA question.

\n\n

The project delivered!

\n\n

References

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Exner, T. E., Dokler, J., Bachler, D., Farcal, L. R., Evelo, C. T., Willighagen, E., Jennen, D. G. J., Jabocs, M., Doganis, P., Sarimveis, H., Lynch, I., Gkoutos, G., Kramer, S., Notredame, C., Spjuth, O., Jennings, P., Dudgeon, T., Bois, F., & Hardy, B. (2018). OpenRiskNet, an open e-infrastructure to support data sharing, knowledge integration and in silico analysis and modelling in risk assessment. Toxicology Letters, 295, S104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxlet.2018.06.617 CrossRef Scholia
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The Virtual Human Platform for Safety Assessment (VHP4Safety) project: Next generation chemical safety assessment based on human data. (2024). ALTEX. https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.2407211 CrossRef Scholia
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", "summary": "Nine days ago, the VHP4Safety project (see these posts) held a launch event in Utrecht for the Virtual Human Platform (VHP), a key result of the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA, from the Dutch Nationale Wetenschapsagenda). Despite the name, the NWA is just one part of the NWO funding mechanisms, but like the NWO Open Science programme it is funding with a specific purpose. And the purpose of the NWA is to answer research and societal questions that the Dutch people together defined and a public consultation (many years ago). VHP4Safety is answering to one of those questions.", "image": "https://chem-bla-ics.linkedchemistry.info/assets/images/vhp_platform.png", "date_published": "2026-06-06T00:00:00+00:00", "date_modified": "2026-06-06T00:00:00+00:00", "tags": ["vhp4safety","bioschemas","openscience","elixir"], "_references": [ { "url": "https://doi.org/10.14573/ALTEX.2407211", "doi": "10.14573/ALTEX.2407211" } , { "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxlet.2018.06.617", "doi": "10.1016/j.toxlet.2018.06.617" } ], "_funding": [{"award": { "title" : "The Virtual Human Platform for Safety Assessment", "acronym" : "VHP4Safety", "uri" : "drc.filenumber:nwa129219272" }, "funder": { "name": "Dutch Research Council", "ror": "04jsz6e67" } }], "authors": [ { "name": "Egon Willighagen", "url": "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7542-0286" } ] } ] }