Vascular Inflammation early discoverieS through Transformative computational Approaches

Objective

Vascular inflammation (VI) drives most cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of global mortality and disability, with atherosclerosis as a key manifestation. Current clinical strategies focus on advanced stages of atherosclerosis, where interventions yield limited benefits. VISTA aims to transform this paradigm by pioneering computational tools for early diagnosis and treatment, bridging the gap between preclinical research and clinical translation. VISTA integrates computational mechanics, chemo-mechano-biology, and machine learning to tackle the challenges of multifactorial diseases. By introducing groundbreaking in silico tools, it seeks to reshape our understanding of VI, advancing preventive and personalized cardiovascular medicine. Key challenges in VI include: (1) Current approaches struggle to synthetise the wealth of evidence on the interplay between biomechanics, biology, and systemic processes. (2) Translating causal insights into clinical applications requires linking evidence to precise mechanisms. (3) Clinical approaches and preclinical research remain rooted in traditional theories, lacking support from in silico tools that fail to incorporate real-world perspectives. VISTA tackles these challenges through three objectives: (1) Developing a graph-informed modelling approach to create virtual patient models by synthesizing evidence-based networks of multiscale interactions. (2) Uncovering mechanistic pathways of VI by creating workflows that combine physics-based models, surrogate modelling, and generative AI. (3) Demonstrating the credibility of in silico methods in clinics and biomedical research. This roadmap will deliver an innovative framework for the early discovery of multifactorial VI mechanisms, uniquely integrating tissue biomechanics, systemic physiopathology, and cell biology. It will advance patient-specific modelling and enable in silico clinical trials, opening pathways for early interventions and transformative therapies.