Subject: VPH Newsletter: June 2013

_________VPH News__________
Monthly newsletter of the Virtual Physiological Human for Integrative Biomedical Research & the Digital Patient News
Dear VPHI members,
June was an important month for the European research and policy dimension of our institute.  Not only was there a first hopeful sign of convergence in the European multi-annual budget discussion but there were also a number of our own policy initiatives. 
 On June 26th, after months of careful planning, talking and networking we held our VPH event in the European parliament. The event, hosted by Prof. Vittorio Prodi and Mr. Seán Kelly, both MEPs, attracted the attention of a substantial number of people in the European parliament and stakeholder organizations. Marco Viceconti and Peter Coveney gave very convincing and enthusing speeches on the VPH, its purpose and its benefits. Dr. Amelia Vlad and Dr. Karim Berkouk shared with us some of their thoughts on the eHealth action plan, VPH and the way forward in H2020. You can find a first report on the successful event further on in this newsletter and a more detailed report will be posted on the institute’s website.
We will very actively follow up with all the attendees to make sure VPH will not be forgotten in the calls for H2020 or in the Parliament’s own initiative report on the eHealth Action Plan. 
Another activity in the VPH policy area was the drafting of the position paper on the data protection regulation that has recently been approved and disseminated. One year after its start, the policy affairs working group (PAWG) is now in picking up speed and our team of enthusiastic volunteers is steadily growing. If you want to learn more about or get involved in our policy activities, simply send an e-mail to the VPHI manager (manager@vph-institute.org) expressing your interest. 
Finally, looking forward to July, we have our general assembly coming up on the 26th in Birmingham. You will get a good overview of all the activities the VPH institutes was engaged in the past year and its plans for the future. We hope to see all of you there!
Happy reading! 
Lies Geris
On behalf of the PAWG
(Policy Affairs Work Group)
European Parliament hosts event on VPH and eHealth Action Plan
On 26 June 2013, under the patronage of MEPs Mr. Sean Kelly (EPP, Ireland) and Professor Vittorio Prodi (S&D, Italy) an event was held in the European Parliament entitled "Towards personalised and in silico medicine: eHealth Action Plan and VPH". In his conclusion remark Mr Kelli speaks of VPH is an economic imperative... Read more
POLICY NEWS
The VPH Institute takes a stand on the Data Protection Regulation Amendments
The VPH researchers working towards personalised and in silico medicine in the EU, fully support those amendments to the LIBE Committee Report on the Data Protection Regulation, which adequately take into account the needs of public health researchers. 
€70 Billion package agreed for Horizon 2020 
After a long negotiations between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, a circa €70 billion package has been agreed for Horizon 2020, the latest framework programme for research and innovation. 
EU campaigning for better, digital healthcare
On 1 July 2013, Commissioner responsible for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes published an interesting opinion on her blog. 
The priorities of the Digital Agenda
On 17 June 2013, the Vice-president of the Commission and Commissioner responsible for the Digital agenda, Neelie Kroes made an interesting speech on the Digital Agenda Priorities.

Data Protection Regulation seems far away from consensus
The ongoing discussions on the Data Protection Regulation has come under close scrutiny from Science Business, an online magazine widely read by policy makers in Brussels.
VPH COMMUNITY
VPH Institute 
General Assembly
July 26th, 14/18
Birmingham
Prof Viceconti releases an interview for Personal Health Foresight
Since September 2009, a FP7 support action ‘Personal Health Systems Foresight’ has coordinated strategic stakeholder engagements in the realm of Personal Health Systems (PHS) within and beyond European Union. The project expands across different PHS areas of application such as chronic disease management, life-style management, independent living and emergency services. Prof Viceconti gives his view on PHS from a VPH prospective.
CHIC: Computational Horizons in Cancer
April 1, 2013 marked the official start of the CHIC project: “Computational Horizons in Cancer: Developing Meta- and Hyper-Multiscale Models and Repositories for In-Silico Oncology”. Get to know something more on the project.
_____DISCIPULUS_____
News on the Digital Patient Roadmap
                                                    
DISCIPULUS: The Digital Patient Roadmap is available
The Digital Patient Roadmap was delivered to the European Commission at the end of June.
This is the result of the combined effort of hundreds of researchers over a period of almost two years of engagement and discussions. The different chapters show the depth and the breath of the Digital Patient research and the challenges we face as a community to make this vision a reality.
I would like to thank every single person who devoted their time and effort to discuss the Digital Patient challenge, sent their comments and/or got involved in the writing of the specific chapters. 
This has been a community effort where healthcare practitioners and researchers from all over Europe and beyond got together to formulate what the Digital Patient is and where the future will take us. 
I am convinced that this is a fundamental document that will have influence in Healthcare and R&D for years to come and so, once again, thank you.
The final copy of the roadmap can be viewed in full on the Digital Patient website.
Vanessa Diaz
DISCIPULUS PI

Download the 
Roadmap for 
the Digital Patient
Also available on the official website
Watch the DISCIPULS interviews on YouTube
Clinicians and key people from the DISCIPULUS project were interviewed on the Digital Patient and its place within the future healthcare. The videos are now available on The Digital Patient YouTube channel.
Read more
VPH EVENTS
§ 5th Int. Conference on Computational Bioengineering (ICCB 2013)
  11-13 September 2013, Leuven Belgium
§ SHIP 2013
  
28-30 August, 2013, St. Andrews, Scotland
§ Cracow Grid Workshops 2013
   4-6 November, Krakow Poland
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