Using BioDynaMo to Study Virus Spread in Closed Environments

 In addition to cellular studies (tumour growth modelling or neural development), BioDynaMo can be used to simulate different systems, such as groups of people and their interactions. As BioDynaMo has been developed to simulate billions of cells, it should be able to handle fairly easily simulations of up to millions of people.


In one of these types of simulation, BioDynaMo is used to study the spreading of viruses in indoor spaces, specifically COVID-19 in droplets and aerosols. We are investigating several scenarios, such as public transportation (bus, metro) and buildings (supermarkets, offices). In these simulations BioDynaMo is in charge of simulating the behaviour and characteristics of individuals, while the ROOT geometrical modeller is used to define the precise environmental geometry. Each individual can then independently move around in these environments where infected individuals can possibly contaminate healthy ones through the spreading of droplets and aerosols. By studying different geometries, airflows, distancing, masks and other parameters we can hopefully determine which environments are best to avoid virus buildup and prevent people from getting infected.


We are working closely together with the epidemiological department of the University of Geneva to make sure that our simulations reflect correctly the many observed cases of virus outbreaks in closed spaces.


This work is sponsored by a grant from the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).


Follow the progress of this research in a future blog post.


Jean de Montigny and Fons Rademakers

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Agent-based modeling in cancer biomedicine: applications and tools for calibration and validation

Image
 We are very excited to announce that our scientific dream team ( Nicolò Cogno , Cristian Axenie ,  Roman Bauer , and Vasileios Vavourakis ) have published a masterpiece review on the topic of " Agent-based modeling in cancer biomedicine: applications and tools for calibration and validation "  They focused on collecting and organizing relevant literature exploring strategies to leverage high-fidelity simulations of multi-scale, or multi-level, cancer models with a focus on verification approached as simulation calibration. The review then culminates in an outline of modern approaches for agent-based models’ validation providing an ambitious outlook toward rigorous and reliable calibration. Learn more by downloading the full text here
Read more

Surrey University's Combyne Lab gave a BioDynaMo tutorial during the (COST Action) NETSKINMODELS' training school

Image
On July 10-12, 2023 at the University of Surrey (Guildford, England, UK) , the COST action CA21108 European Network for Skin Engineering and Modeling (NETSKINMODELS) held its Training School 2023 Advancing skills in 3D skin and epidermal biology computer modelling  ( intended for PhD students and post-doc level researchers with at least preliminary programming skills and an excellent command in digital literacy ). The COMBYNE Lab was there.  Roman Bauer , Umar Abubacar , and Cayla Harris offered an introductory tutorial about BioDynaMo and the advantages that adopting a standardized and optimized general purpose agent based simulation suite can produce for the reproducibility and reusability of models and research. Following you can find the slides and transcript of a portion of the tutorial, kindly shared by COMBYNE Lab 's PhD student and BioDynaMo contributor Cayla Harris . We hope you find it interesting and useful (and don't hesitate to get in touch wit...
Read more

Bridging scales: A hybrid model to simulate vascular tumor growth and treatment response

Image
 According to the GLOBOCAN collaboration, cancer is one of the deadliest diseases worldwide and was responsible for one out of six fatalities in 2020 , and the estimated global economic cost of cancers from 2020 to 2050 is substantial, $25.2 trillion in international dollars (at constant 2017 prices), equivalent to an annual tax of 0.55% on global GDP . Graphical abstract of DOI:  10.1016/j.cma.2023.116566 It comes to no surprise that the rate of oncology indication approvals has increased, from January 2000 to October 2022, driven by approvals for targeted therapies, as has the rate of introduction of new therapeutic approaches . If drugs are becoming ever more precise, and the number of potential targets is growing, our ability to aim (to match the treatments and patients and disease evolution) is coming under stress and initiatives the US Cancer Moonshot programme , focusing on high-tech science, big data, and patient-centred care, bear witness to the huge ef...
Read more