VITAL INITIATIVE
ABOUT VITAL
Uniting the world's leading scientific forces
to build a multi-scale digital life system spanning from molecules and cells to the human body and ecosystems, propelling life sciences from “observation and description” toward “computation and prediction.”
After the Human Genome Project
From Mapping Life
to Understanding Life
Life is inherently dynamic, yet our understanding of it remains largely built upon static representations. The next frontier of life science is to move beyond mapping life's components toward understanding how living systems function across space and time.
Digital Life
The VITAL Initiative aims to integrate biological information across molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and organisms into a unified Digital Life framework. Through an iterative cycle of Observe – Model – Predict – Perturb – Validate, the Initiative seeks to establish digital models that are computable, emulable, verifiable, iterative, deducible, and manipulable—bringing us closer to the fundamental principles that govern living systems.
- Cells
- Tissues
- Organs
- Organisms
Building a Global
Scientific Foundation
This vision extends beyond the capabilities of any single discipline, institution, or nation. Achieving Digital Life requires the global scientific community to jointly develop new theories, shared standards, interoperable datasets, experimental platforms, computational models, and open scientific infrastructures, enabling digital models and living systems to evolve through continuous mutual validation.
Our Vision
Our ambition is not only to create digital twins of living systems,
but also to establish a new scientific paradigm for understanding life itself. By uncovering the fundamental principles of life's dynamic organization, the VITAL Initiative will provide a shared foundation for future advances in human health, biotechnology, precision medicine, artificial intelligence, and the life sciences.
Road Map
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1.Data
Data production
- Multimodal imaging
- Multiomics
- Dynamic monitoring
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2.Integration
Alignment and integration
- Unified coordinates
- Metadata and standards
- Cross modal fusion
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3.Model
Multiscale model
- Molecule cell tissue organ individual
- state variable
- Level interface / translation rules
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4.Validation
Verify closed loop
- forecast
- Disturbance
- Real time observation
- Model update
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5.Applications
Application and Standard
- Development / Disease / Aging
- Drug evaluation
- Precision medicine
- Biological manufacturing
- Validation criteria
- Phase I
Build the base
data base / standard / first sample
- Phase II
Build the loop
cross scale model / validation closed loop / benchmark
- Phase III
Build the twin ecosystem
application model / international standard / clinical and industrial transformation