ISINP
Access the Fourth International Summer Institute on Network Physiology (ISINP) in 2025 here:
The multidisciplinary field of Network Physiology focuses on whole-body research to understand the mechanisms through which diverse physiological systems and subsystems, across spatiotemporal scales from the cellular to the organism level, interact to synchronize their dynamics and coordinate their functions, uncover cross-communication among systems, and establish basic principles underlying the integration of systems and organs as a network to generate distinct physiological states and behaviors in health and disease. In addition to defining health and disease through structural, dynamical and regulatory changes in individual physiological systems, the new conceptual framework of Network Physiology focuses on the coordination and network interactions among systems and sub-systems as a hallmark of physiological state and function.
Network Physiology integrates empirical and theoretical knowledge and approaches across disciplines and fields ranging from applied mathematics, data science, physics and biomedical engineering to biology, genomics and proteomics, neuroscience, physiology and clinical medicine.
Essential for Network Physiology is the development of integrated platforms of medical devices, networks of sensors and wearables for synchronized recording of physiological data in both clinical and ambulatory environments; large-scale multimodal databases of continuously recorded parameters from multiple systems and body areas; whole body integration of biochemical, genetic and imaging modalities; novel analytic, computational and data science methodologies widely applicable to diverse systems and able to infer coupling forms and network interactions; novel AI formalism applicable to networks of dynamic systems with nonlinear time-varying interactions to facilitate classification, prediction, pair-wise and higher-order causal inferences; new theoretical framework to quantitatively access the relationship between network structure and dynamics with basic physiological states and clinical conditions, and to elucidate the regulatory mechanisms through which physiological functions at the organism level emerge from network integration among systems. The goal is to build the Human Physiolome — a comprehensive dynamic atlas of physiologic network interactions across levels and spatiotemporal scales comprising a library of dynamic network maps representing hundreds of physiological states across developmental conditions and diseases.
To foster the development of an active community of interdisciplinary researchers, biomedical engineers, physiologists and medical clinicians, the Keck Laboratory for Network Physiology has initiated and established the International Summer Institute on Network Physiology (ISINP) with support from the W. M. Keck Foundation, the Alessandro Volta Foundation and Lake Como School for Advanced Studies. Organized biennially since 2017, ISINP addresses a diverse audience of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research scientists, academic faculty and industry specialists from different disciplines to outline current developments, discuss challenges, and identify new frontiers in Network Physiology.
To support the development of Network Physiology the journal Frontiers in Network Physiology was launched in 2021. It is the only scientific journal focusing on how physiological systems and subsystems interact to synchronize functions and integrate as networks to generate physiological states and conditions in health and disease. Frontiers in Network Physiology is committed to advancing the field by providing unrestricted access to articles and communicating scientific knowledge to researchers and the public.
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Join the Network Physiology Group of academics and industry researchers at Google Scholar by adding ‘Network Physiology’ as area of interest in your personal Google Scholar Profile.