The Insigneo Institute for in silico medicine is a collaborative initiative between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It is a multi-disciplinary institute involving over 140 academics and clinicians who collaborate to develop computer simulations of the human body and its disease processes that can be used directly in clinical practice to improve diagnosis and treatment. This is probably the most sophisticated application of computing technology in healthcare, and Sheffield has become the UK’s main centre for this work.

Insigneo performs cutting edge research in areas of fundamental and applied biomedical modelling, imaging and informatics. It will pursue the research agenda of the Virtual Physiological Human initiative;in particular, in the first five years it will focus on the Digital Patient, in silico Clinical Trials, and Personal Health Forecasting. It will achieve a transformational impact on healthcare through multidisciplinary collaboration in strategic areas, which initially will include personalised treatments and independent, active and healthy ageing.