"After decades of research, models like these are now entering clinical trials and starting to be used for patient care. Virtual replicas of many other organs are also being developed.
Engineers are working on digital twins of people’s brains, guts, livers, nervous systems, and more. They’re creating virtual replicas of people’s faces, which could be used to try out surgeries or analyze facial features, and testing drugs on digital cancers. The eventual goal is to create digital versions of our bodies—computer copies that could help researchers and doctors figure out our risk of developing various diseases and determine which treatments might work best. They’d be our own personal guinea pigs for testing out medicines before we subject our real bodies to them.
To engineers like Niederer, it’s a tantalizing prospect very much within reach. Several pilot studies have been completed, and larger trials are underway. Those in the field expect digital twins based on organs to become a part of clinical care within the next five to 10 years, aiding diagnosis and surgical decision-making. Further down the line, we’ll even be able to run clinical trials on synthetic patients—virtual bodies created using real data.
But the budding technology will need to be developed carefully. Some worry about who will own this highly personalized data and how it could be used. Others fear for patient autonomy—with an uncomplicated virtual record to consult, will doctors eventually bypass the patients themselves? And some simply feel a visceral repulsion at the idea of attempts to re-create humans in silico. “People will say ‘I don’t want you copying me,’” says Wahbi El-Bouri, who is working on digital-twin technologies. “They feel it’s a part of them that you’ve taken.”"
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/19/1108447/digital-twins-human-organs-medical-treatment-drug-trials/
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