About

Physiological Maps are comprehensive graphical representations of cellular and molecular processes related to specific organ functions (Vinken et al., 2021). Like Disease Maps, physiological maps encapsulate comprehensive knowledge (in this case, undisturbed physiological mechanisms) in a standardized graphical notation that is designed for human comprehension and machine readability. Organ-specific physiological maps are currently being developed as part of the H2020 ONTOX project: bile secretion & lipid metabolism (liver), nephron physiology (kidney), neural tube closure & cognitive function development (developing brain).

In ONTOX, physiological maps serve as the initial foundation for our strategies, offering fundamental biological mechanistic information. These maps are then used to expand and refine adverse outcome pathways and construct ontology maps, which allow for the integration of toxicological, kinetic, and chemical information on top of the physiological framework.

Vinken et al., 2021 - DOI:10.1016/j.tox.2021.152846

ONTOX in a nutshell

The EU-funded ONTOX project aims to develop a generic strategy for creating innovative new approach methodologies (NAMs) to predict systemic repeated dose toxicity of chemicals without animal testing. The strategy will use cutting-edge artificial intelligence and biological/mechanistic, toxicological/epidemiological, physico-chemical, and kinetic data. The project focuses on six NAMs that address liver, kidney, and developing brain chemical-induced conditions caused by pharmaceutical, cosmetics, food, and biocide chemicals. The six NAMs are expected to have an AI-based computational system and be evaluated and applied with industrial and regulatory stakeholders to maximize end-user acceptance and regulatory confidence. The project is expected to significantly impact the development, exploitation, regulation, and application of animal-free methods for chemical risk assessment. You can learn more about ONTOX at the official website: https://ontox-project.eu/

ONTOX Maps curation coordination team

Prof. Liesbet Geris

Head of the Biomechanics Research Unit, University of Liège and KU Leuven, Belgium. Executive Director of the Virtual Physiological Human Institute (VPHi)

Bernard Staumont, PhD

Project Manager and Postdoctoral Researcher at the GIGA Molecular & Computational Biology, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

Luiz Ladeira, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher at the GIGA Molecular & Computational Biology, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

Alessio Gamba, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher at the GIGA Molecular & Computational Biology, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

Funding

This work was performed in the context of the ONTOX project (https://ontox-project.eu/) that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement No 963845. ONTOX is part of the ASPIS project cluster (https://aspis-cluster.eu/).

How to cite

Staumont, B., Ladeira, L., Gamba, A., Heusinkveld, H. J., Piersma, A., Fritsche, E., Masereeuw, R., Vanhaecke, T., Teunis, M., Luechtefeld, T., Hartung, T., Jover, R., Vinken, M., & Geris, L. (2025). Mapping physiology: a systems biology approach for the development of alternative methods in toxicology. ALTEX. https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.2412241.

License

This work and its respective maps and files are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Acknowledgements

The online browsing of our maps is supported by the MINERVA team (https://minerva.pages.uni.lu/doc/) at the Bioinformatics Core of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine within the ELIXIR-LU framework (https://elixir-luxembourg.org).

This website uses free graphical elements from flaticon.com.

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