Last month, the EU-funded VirtualBrainCloud project (TVB_Cloud) participated in a review meeting with its EU project officer and project monitors. This is the second review meeting for the project, during which TVB_Cloud leaders presented recent project advances and updates to expert reviewers appointed by Horizon 2020. The premise of TVB_Cloud is "exploiting the full potential of in silico medicine research for personalised diagnostics and therapies in cloud-based environments".
TVB_Cloud aims to create a decision support system for clinicians, formed around a cloud platform for personalised brain simulations based on high-quality, multidisciplinary clinical data, encompassing brain scans, -genetic and blood-based biomarker data. This decision support system will enhance the early diagnosis, prognosis and personalised treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, with an initial focus on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and dementia. Involving 17 partners with expertise from many disciplines including brain imaging technologies, data protection, artificial intelligence and neuroscience, TVB_Cloud was launched in spring 2019 and receives almost EUR17M in funding through Horizon 2020.
The review meeting brought together representatives from all these partner organisations, and was chaired by Prof. Petra Ritter of Charite University Hospital Berlin, the leader of TVB_Cloud. Over the course of the day-long review meeting, leaders of the nine TVB_Cloud workpackages summarised activities and major achievements since the start of the project. The diverse range of dissemination and communication activities was highlighted, including a TVB_Cloud symposium at the Alzheimer Europe conference in 2021, and a European Parliament lunch debate with policymakers and stakeholders. Much of the review meeting was dedicated to computational and AI developments, including presentation of the TVB_Cloud Virtual Research Environment and new tools including a digital brain atlas and a 3D viewer that maps biological mechanisms to different areas of the brain. To find out more about these and other developments from TVB_Cloud, visit the project website: https://virtualbraincloud-2020.eu/tvb-cloud-main.html