Personalized medicine: the simulated patient
Empa researchers have modeled several hundred avatars based on real people and treated them experimentally. For the first time, the digital twins received feedback from real patients, which enabled Empa researchers to further optimize the therapy.
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To ensure that the dosage of painkillers can be determined and kept constant for each individual patient in the spirit of personalized medicine, Empa researchers, together with a team from the University of Bern, are using the innovative research field of computer and data sciences. The team led by Thijs Defraeye from Empa's "Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles" laboratory in St. Gallen is using multiphysics modeling to develop a digital twin of the human body that allows the course of therapy to be controlled and predicted.
In the mathematical models on which the complex digital doppelganger is based, the researchers have taken into account a large number of variables from real people, such as age and lifestyle. This is because the effect of a drug is influenced by a wealth of physical parameters that can vary greatly from person to person.
"When we create an avatar, we take into account, for example, how the drug is metabolized in the living body during treatment and how much ultimately arrives at the pain center in the human brain," explains Empa researcher Defraeye.
In the mathematical models on which the complex digital doppelganger is based, the researchers have taken into account a large number of variables from real people, such as age and lifestyle. This is because the effect of a drug is influenced by a wealth of physical parameters that can vary greatly from person to person.
"When we create an avatar, we take into account, for example, how the drug is metabolized in the living body during treatment and how much ultimately arrives at the pain center in the human brain," explains Empa researcher Defraeye.
Pain therapy using transdermal patches is just the beginning of avatar-assisted treatment: In collaboration with clinics and hospitals, Empa researchers now want to optimize other therapies such as insulin administration for diabetes using digital twins.
Source: Empa
