Penn Medicine joins national effort to digitally map the human body

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania are joining a national collaboration to launch the Whole Person Physiome Research and Coordination Center (WPP-RCC), an initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create the first comprehensive digital map of the healthy human body. The effort will bring together leading experts in physiology, precision medicine, and computational biology to evolve our understanding of human health. The WPP-RCC is supported by 21 NIH institutes and offices as part of the NIH Whole Person Initiative and is overseen by The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

“This initiative represents a bold step forward in how we study and model human physiology,” said Katalin Susztak, MD, PhD, a professor of Nephrology, Genetics and director of the Penn/CHOP Kidney Innovation Center, who will serve as one of the principal investigators of the WPP-RCC, alongside researchers from the Stanford School of Medicine, Indiana University, and Liming Pei, PhD, an associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn and an investigator in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Research Institute.

“By integrating clinical data, computational modeling, and physiological processes, we aim to build a dynamic, AI-ready resource that will empower researchers and clinicians to better understand health and disease,” said Pei.

How it works

The Whole Person Physiome map will combine how the body works with medical data like test results and vital signs. It’s being designed so that computers and artificial intelligence can easily access it. There will also be computer models and graphics showing what a healthy person looks like, along with clear visuals and helpful tools. Ideally, doctors and scientists will be able to enter patient or research data into the system and see how changes—like a disease or treatment—might affect the body as a whole.

A place for expert collaboration

The WPP-RCC will coordinate a multi-tier network of clinical and scientific experts to construct the Whole Person Physiome map. It will serve as the central hub for collaboration, consensus-building, and integration with other large-scale efforts in organ and molecular modeling, and tool development.

By design, the WPP-RCC will be open and collaborative, inviting researchers across domains to contribute to the Whole Person Working Group and to apply WPP resources to their own studies. Annual data jamborees will foster community engagement, while close integration with NIH stakeholders will ensure alignment with evolving research priorities.

The WPP-RCC represents a major step toward digitizing human physiology as an evolving resource — one that will empower discovery and inspire new therapies.