The virtual liver: state of the art and future perspectives

clarifying the underlying principles. The mathematical models formalize the relationship between individual components, test their interactions in a virtual setting and may even simulate influences that are (still) difficult to analyse experimentally. In recent years, model simulations have been instrumental to elucidate mechanisms and principles that were not accessible by traditional approaches. To promote systems biology research in the field of the liver with the aim to gain a better understanding of the basic mechanisms of liver function as well as key principles of liver Developments over the past two decades have improved our ability to obtain comprehensive and quantitative data, for example, by genome-wide analysis of gene expression, proteomics, lipidomics and metabolomics. Moreover, both imaging and image analysis have been improved which offers new possibilities to quantify the three-dimensional organization of cells and tissues. However, research in disease pathogenesis is often hampered by the difficulty to understand the complex, time-resolved interplay among numerous components. Here, mathematical modelling helps