WEBINAR—SPARC Tools for Integrative Physiological Modeling

December 12, 2023
4 p.m. EST

Watch on-demand

The SPARC Portal was developed to support the needs of the autonomic nervous system research community in linking brainstem motor output, via sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve fibers, with visceral organs and the sensory fibers that provide feedback to the control centers in the brainstem. A major component of the SPARC Portal is the SPARC Connectivity Knowledge Base of the Autonomic Nervous System (SCKAN), a centralized resource to populate, discover, and search autonomic nervous system connectivity knowledge over multiple scales.  

The data repository, knowledge base, spatial mapping tools and organ scaffolds behind the SPARC Portal are also capable of supporting a wide range of other physiological systems, including the vasculature, lymphatics and neuro-musculoskeletal systems. The functional connectivity map, which includes all organ systems, organs and functional tissue units), is designed to provide an interface to a wide range of physiological data and models. 

In this webinar, Maryann Martone, PhD, and Peter Hunter, PhD, will explore the SCKAN knowledge base, SPARC Knowledge Graph and the potential uses of the portal for the wider range of physiological processes. The interactive program will allow the audience to discuss ways in which the portal may be developed to meet the needs of integrative physiological modeling.  

Speakers

Maryann Martone, PhD
Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego

Maryann Martone, PhD, is professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She received her BA in biological psychology and ancient Greek from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and her PhD in neuroscience from UCSD. Martone maintains the FAIR Data Informatics Lab at UCSD. She started her career as a neuroanatomist, specializing in light and electron microscopy, but her main research for the past 15 years focused on informatics for neuroscience(neuroinformatics). She led the Neuroscience Information Framework, a national project to establish a uniform resource description framework for neuroscience, and the NIDDK Information Network, a portal for connecting researchers in digestive, kidney and metabolic disease to data, tools and materials.

Peter Hunter, PhD, FRS, FRSNZ
Distinguished Professor, University of Auckland

Peter Hunter, PhD, FRS, FRSNZ, is a distinguished professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His major research interests focus using computational algorithms and an anatomical and biophysical-based approach.to model many aspects of the human body This method incorporates detailed anatomical and microstructural measurements and material properties into the continuum models. As recent co-chair of the International Union of Physiological Sciences’ Physiome Committee, Hunter is developing standards-based physiological models and the use of computational methods to understand the integrated physiological function—in terms of the structure and function of tissues, cells and proteins—of the body. Alongside his role as founder of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and professor of engineering science at the University of Auckland, Hunter is co-director of the computational physiology program at Oxford University in the U.K. Hunter holds honorary or visiting professorships at a number of universities around the world.