Our Digital Twins Will Help Diagnose And Treat Diseases | Thomas Gull, University of Zurich

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Thomas Gull -- University of Zurich

Sept. 22, 2023

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the world of medicine. In the future, we will be able to create digital twins that simulate various processes in our body in order to help us diagnose and treat diseases.

They will know us better than we know ourselves. Our digital twins will collect near-live data on our bodies while we go about our daily lives -- working, exercising, going out for drinks or visiting the doctor. "Digital twins will be our partners. They will be by our side and advise us," says physician Claudia Witt, professor and co-director of the Digital Society Initiative at the University of Zurich.

Fibers and Fitness

Digital twins combine two of the benefits of digitalization in medicine: personalized data collection and big data analytics. Both are used in digital twin technology. A digital twin is a virtual model that combines a person's individual data, for example information about their blood pressure or heart rate, with models of the respective body function.

The models, which are based on the collective data of a large number of people, describe key vital functions such as our respiratory or cardiovascular system, our digestion or our metabolism. The purpose of these models is to simulate how our body responds to external factors, including our diet, physical exercise or medication.

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