How digital twins may enable personalised health treatment

Research is growing into computational models that will move medicine beyond what works on the average patient

Imagine having a digital twin that gets ill, and can be experimented on to identify the best possible treatment, without you having to go near a pill or a surgeon's knife. Scientists believe that within five to 10 years, in silico" trials - in which hundreds of virtual organs are used to assess the safety and efficacy of drugs - could become routine, while patient-specific organ models could be used to personalise treatment and avoid medical complications.

Digital twins are computational models of physical objects or processes, updated using data from their real-world counterparts. Within medicine, this means combining vast amounts of data about the workings of genes, proteins, cells and whole-body systems with patients' personal data to create virtual models of their organs - and eventually, potentially their entire body.