Envision a biomedical R&D landscape in which researchers plan detailed wet-lab experiments and execute them in a virtual laboratory—all before putting on their lab coat. They choose virtual reagents, lab equipment, and specimens; they implement virtual protocols and take virtual measurements using virtual instrumentation. They use the results of virtual experiments to design new or refocused wet-lab experiments, which they then conduct in a physical laboratory.

This is the virtual biomedical experiment (VBE) vision. A virtual biomedical experiment is a simulation of a wet-lab or clinical experiment. When developing a VBE, the modeler aspires to mimic particular relevant aspects of the referent experiment—from hypothesis formation to data analysis, and key concepts in between—not just features of the underlying biological processes.