Design and strategy for the Cardionome Project

The Physiome Project has the goal of providing the quantitative description of the integrated functions of the living organism. This is too large an undertaking to be begun all at once. What needs to be developed first are large comprehensive databases containing genomic, biochemical, anatomical and physiological information that can be searched and retrieved via the Internet. A more modest and achievable goal is the Cardiome Project, whose goal is to describe the functioning heart. Since it is impractical to develop this from the genetic and molecular level, we begin it as a multicenter collaborative effort at the level of the functioning organ. The work of Hunter, Noble, and others provides a central scheme, a description of the spread of excitation and contraction through an anatomically detailed cardiac model with fiber directions. This will be augmented by the additions of regional blood flows, substrate uptake and metabolism, and energy production and utilization in serving contraction and ionic balances. Later stages will involve cellular regulation and responses to interventions. The organization of such projects is by the assembling of components whose linkages one to another are first minimized and then augmented to improve the approximation to reality.