Mathematical models have become important tools in understanding key cause and effect relationships governing physiological processes. These models range from single cell simulations to computational fluid dynamic simulations of cardiac function and to whole-body physiological simulations of chronic diseases. Over the last 50 years the Department of Physiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and HC Simulation, LLC has focused on developing an integrative simulation of human physiology: HumMod. HumMod, an abbreviation for Human Model, is a Windows-based model of integrative human physiology. HumMod consists of >9,000 variables describing cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, neural, endocrine, skeletal muscle and metabolic physiology. The model is constructed from empirical data obtained from peer-reviewed physiological literature. The model has been shown to accurately predict both qualitative and quantitative changes in experimental and clinical responses. Over the last 10 years our work has focused on understanding the mechanisms by which newly designed medical devices for the treatment of hypertension lower blood pressure. Currently we are using HumMod to create virtual populations to understand why certain patients respond or do not respond to different treatments.

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Robert Hester, Ph.D.

Dr. Robert Hester is a part-time Professor of Physiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and a Billy S. Guyton Distinguished Professor. He graduated in Biological Engineering at Mississippi State University, then completed a PhD in Biomedical Engineering jointly from Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Dr. Hester’s research focus over the last 20 years has focused on the development of HumMod, a large simulation computer simulation of human physiology. His current work focuses on using the large-scale integrative physiology model, HumMod, for “in silico” clinical trials. Dr. Hester is also President and CEO of HC Simulation, LLC, hcsimulation.com, a software company developing HumMod for commercial and educational purposes.