The VPH Summer School was co-organized by BCN MedTech at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Chair: Prof Jérôme Noailly and by the Virtual Physiological Human Institute (VPHi), with the collaboration of the UPF department of Medicine and Life Science and the QUAES Foundation on 5th-9th, June 2023 in Barcelona.

The event provided junior engineers, early researchers and medical doctors with an integrative view of state-of-the-art research for in silico medicine, following a complete pipeline from basic science and clinical needs, to model application.

This year, we had the pleasure to welcome 16 keynote speakers and 97+ attendees (online and offline), from all over the world.

The key methodological and technological concepts were enriched by afternoon hands-on sessions that stand for 15,5 hours of transversal training in in silico medicine technologies during the whole week. The most of the attendees participated to the 5 hands-on sessions led by a total of 10 expert researchers (8 from UPF and 2 external).

On Tuesday, 6th of June, the participants had an opportunity to visit Visit MareNostrum, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) and its facilities with supercomputer whirring away in a Barcelona chapel.

The everyday scientific talks and practical workshops took place together with poster sessions that fed the scientific discussions during the afternoons.

Half way of the event, the delegates could relax and discuss during the Catalan tastes that has become a traditional social event since the 1st Summer School, in 2016.

On Friday, 9th of June, the Best VPHi Poster Award was won by Andrea Nuesch, Disc4All Project PhD candidate, with the poster “The presence of Gram positive bacteria within intervertebral disc tissue and their potential influence”.

Followed by the Best UPF-QUAES Hands-on award ceremony. The winner was Hands-on 5 “Left atrium occlusion and thrombus formation” with the group members: Sam Boxwell, William Greenough, Marina Ribera Pascual, Patricia Maria Barrufet, Nerea Casado, Arig Kamalmaz, Antoni Riera, Irene Barbara and instructors: Jordi Mill Tena, UPF and Carlos Albors, UPF.

After this exciting week, we said bye to all amazing attendees with farewell drinks at Gutenberg square!

We’d like to thank you all once again: 113 participants of the 7th Barcelona VPH Summer School, speakers, instructors, chairs, jury members, poster reviewers, sponsors, dissemination partners, UPF departments and catering providers!

Stay tuned for the 8th edition, in 2024! Meanwhile, watch the recordings on our YouTube: Disc4All European Innovative Training Network, Join & follow us in Linkedin: @Disc4All_EU_Project, Twitter @Disc4all_EU, website: https://disc4all.upf.edu/.