The aim of this thesis is to investigate possibilities for creating digital replicas of human organisms (organs, metabolic characteristics, biological characteristics) as part of a growing project across Europe. The application areas of these digital twins that we we call “Virtual Labs” are many: Monitoring health, diagnosis, experimenting with potential drugs, vaccines and other therapeutic means, testing medical instrumentation, optimal training, rehabilitation etc.
It is a fact that advances computational tools and techniques have accelerated research and development in every area. This realisation has added to increased interest in Virtual Labs and similar biomedical digital twins technologies, also due to the Pandemic we are going through, which most likely will not be the last one. Imagine: Using Virtual Labs, software models, simulations and tools to automate part of the vaccine development and production process by only 1 year has an socio-economic value of several thousands of billions in addition to the unmeasurable value of saving lives.
There are many aspects of Virtual Labs that need to be investigated. Creating models/algorithms to represent parts of human biology, using modern 3D and Extended Reality technologies for immersive visualisation and model manipulation, AI capabilities like pattern recognition, prediction and machine learning to help identify and model organisms (pathogens), help in diagnosis, help in drug discovery, use human models for partial and virtual clinical testing of drugs and their side-effects, design personalised drugs and therapies etc.
If you already have an interest or background in biomedical sciences, or if you are interested in building up your knowledge for working in computational biomedicine, please do contact us.