Next edition of the Avicenna Monthly Webinar Series, is taking place on Thursday, 2 October 2025 at 5 pm CEST
Thursday, 2 October 2025 at 5 pm CEST
Abstract: The Physiome Project, the European VPH initiative and the US IMAG program have helped facilitate the use of physics and engineering approaches to physiology and medicine. In this talk I will discuss these initiatives but argue that we should now bring much more of the biochemistry underpinning human physiology into our modelling frameworks.
Peter Hunter, Distinguished Professor
Distinguished Professor Sir Peter Hunter KNZM, FRS completed an engineering degree in 1971 in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (now Engineering Science) at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, a Master of Engineering degree in 1972 (Auckland) on solving the equations of arterial blood flow and a DPhil (PhD) in Physiology at the University of Oxford in 1975 on finite element modeling of ventricular mechanics. His major research interests since then have been modelling many aspects of the human body using specially developed computational algorithms and an anatomically and biophysically based approach which incorporates detailed anatomical and microstructural measurements and material properties into the continuum models. The interrelated electrical, mechanical and biochemical functions of the heart, for example, have been modelled in the first ‘physiome’ model of an organ.
As the recent co-Chair of the Physiome Committee of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) he has been helping to lead the international Physiome Project which aims to develop model and data encoding standards (CellML, FieldML, BioSignalML) and to use computational methods for understanding the integrated physiological function of the body in terms of the structure and function of tissues, cells and proteins. He is currently a Distinguished Professor and founder of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland, co-Director of Computational Physiology at Oxford University and holds honorary or visiting Professorships at a number of Universities around the world. He is on the scientific advisory boards of a number of Research Institutes in Europe, the US and the Asia-Pacific region.
Professor Hunter is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society (London and NZ), the World Council for Biomechanics, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the International Academy of Medical & Biological Engineering (IAMBE). He has been President of the Physiological Society of New Zealand and in the past has been exec Chair of the World Council for Biomechanics, a Vice-President of IUPS and Chair of the IAMBE Exec.
Peter has received numerous accolades for his work and in 2010 was appointed to the NZ Order of Merit. In 2009, he was awarded the Rutherford Medal, New Zealand's top science award, as well as the KEA World Class NZ award in Research, Science, Technology and Academia. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1994 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 2006.
