When a research team from a medicine college in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, announced early last month it had sliced a human body into 16,600 pieces, it caused a sensation throughout the country.
The researchers said they will photograph the collection and use the images to create a virtual human in a year.
It is part of a Chinese Government-sponsored Virtual Human Project, according to Zhong Shizhen, a professor of medicine and chief scientist on the project.
One, Two, or Three?
A couple of days after their announcement, another research team in Beijing led by Tian Jie, a researcher from a Beijing-based institute, declared it had initiated a project under the same name and is now applying for funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST).
Meanwhile, news reports said a research center based in Southwest China's Sichuan Province had already developed a virtual human.
Its creator, Lin Daquan, a professor at the Sichuan University, was quoted as saying he has already created some visible models that might be used as a platform for the creation of a virtual human, to be used in medical research and diagnosis.
The deluge of information caused even greater media hype in the following months.
It culminated last week when local media reported that Zhong's team is planning to cooperate with counterparts in the United States and South Korea on the project.
Making the issue even more complicated is the fact that all three Chinese-based initiatives appear to be interrelated.
Both Zhong and Tian's teams claim to have obtained support from MOST and a couple of hospitals are mentioned in both cases.
Lin claimed he was involved in a project under Tian, who said they were pursuing different goals.
Tian, a research fellow at the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said he knew of Zhong and Lin's work but insisted his project is not simply a duplicate.
He said Lin will be involved in their project. But Tian said Lin's research is on plastic human bodies, which has already been widely used medically and in the car industry.
Lin has created bionic human bodies made of synthetic and other material. Lin has trouble going through safety checks at airports with his luggage containing pieces of plastic human bodies. Hospitals use his creations to double check newly acquired lasers or other devices.
"It's not necessary to find out which is the only or the exclusive virtual human project," Tian said. "Many Chinese scientists have, or will do research in this area.
"It is safe to say that many more have shown special interest in this subject."
Visible Human Project
Interest was instigated late last year when a close-door meeting between China's top-notch scientists was held at Fragrant Hill, in Beijing's suburbs.
The meeting focused on international research and the development of virtual humans.
The notion stems from the US-based Visible Human Project (VHP), which has now gone into its 13th year of study, according to Tian.
VHP was initiated by the National Library of Medicine of the United States and wants to build a digital image library of volumetric data representing a complete, normal adult male and female.
Researchers segmented male and female cadavers and set up a catalogue of anatomical images as a tool for medical education and diagnosis.
It has been thought that medical students can start anatomy courses on virtual humans rather than with cadavers. In addition, clinical trials of new medicines and treatments can be carried out on virtual humans, hopefully saving a substantial amount of time and money.
Only the US and South Korea are reported to have carried out such projects so far.
Zhong and Tian both believe China should initiate its own, unique project.
At the Beijing meeting, it was proposed China could initiate its own project characterized by the special features of Chinese people.
Shortly after the meeting Zhong, who was chairman at the discussion and is a professor at the No 1 University of Military Medicine, applied for financial support from MOST to create a digital set of images.
MOST's response was swift and positive.
Zhong, in collaboration with a few research institutions and hospitals in Beijing, had the project listed under the famous 863 National High Technology Plan.
They chose a 1.66-meter-tall (5.4-feet-tall) male cadaver as the sample and gave it a perfect name: No 1 China Virtual Human.
They are now working with a female cadaver, according to Zhong.
Tian's team, however, is applying to MOST for another national plan called 973, which is primarily aimed at funding basic research.
Tian denied there is competition with Zhong's team and that he is trying to replicate Zhong's achievements.
"Our projects are different in many aspects," Tian said. "Professor Zhong's creation has largely depended on previous research on blood vessel modeling, while ours is to make use of our research capacity in medical imagery software."
While admitting Zhong's team has done a good job in cadaver segmentation, Tian said his team's research may go further.
He outlined a more ambitious project, saying the goal is to create virtual humans that reflect Chinese physical features with physiological and mental characteristics.
According to Tian, the project will be conducted at his laboratory at the institute, the School of Life Science at Tsinghua University and a research center at Peking University.
"We will focus on different aspects of the project that can make the best use of each one's particular research capacity," Tian said.
Anatomical data obtained through cadaver segmentation is still needed as the basic tool.
"We may either contact Professor Zhong or the National Library of Medicine to use their data set," Tian said.
"Then we will develop different models with a specific function."
The other Chinese group, led by Bao Shanglian at the Research Center for Diagnostic Technology of Tumors at the Peking University, will investigate the reaction of virtual humans exposed to X-ray radiation, a therapy widely used in the treatment of tumors.
Bao said radiation therapy largely depends on using the correct amount of radioactive substances, which may become more secure and effective by testing it on virtual humans.
"That's why we are so interested in the project. We think it is possible," he said.
Medical imagery software, which has been developed in Tian's laboratory for more than a decade, may assist Bao's research substantially.
Tian's laboratory has already built a digital platform called 3D MED that can easily transform 2-dimensional medical images into 3-dimensional virtual objects. The virtual human will be created using the platform, Tian noted.
Data to Knowledge
Scientists agree all that can be done in the near future is to take a small step on a long medical journey.
When data from virtual humans is completed by Zhong's team next year, a larger challenge will be to simulate the physiological mechanism of organs and tissues.
The VHP, for instance, has just entered its second phase. It aims to associate digital data from the human body collected in the first phase with scientists' understandings of human functions.
Tian said another group involved in his project, led by researchers from the School of Life Science of Tsinghua University, will be dedicated to the simulation of human organs and eventually the human body.
"Only then can we say a virtual human has been created in its truest sense," Tian said.
"All of us are advancing in that direction but nobody can say for sure when."
(China Daily September 6, 2002)
