An international project to create a ‘digital twin’ of the human immune system could help scientists finally tackle grand challenges such as autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases.
The Research Data Alliance Building Immune Digital Twins Working Group (RDA-BIDT WG) includes scientist from the University of Surrey and is supported by The RDA TIGER (Research Data Alliance facilitation of Targeted International working Groups for EOSC-related Research solutions).
The group includes more than 100 experts from 22 countries and is led by Professor Anna Niarakis from the University of Toulouse, Centre for Integrative Biology, CNRS, France.
Digital twins are virtual, dynamic models of a physical object or system – they have already been successful in engineering and industry; in healthcare, they have been used for cardiovascular diagnostics and diabetes management, with systems like the artificial pancreas proving valuable in clinical practice.
Dr Yashwanth Subbannayya, Dean's Research Fellow at the University of Surrey and member of the RDA-BIDT WG, said:
"The immune system's complexity and variability from person to person make it difficult to treat when things go wrong. By building a digital twin, we could create a virtual model of a patient's immune system, allowing doctors and researchers to simulate how different drugs or treatments would work for that individual without ever risking harm."
The development of an Immune Digital Twin (IDT) is a particularly complex task, as the human immune system is a highly intricate network of cells and molecules that constantly adapt and respond. It is challenging to accurately measure a patient's immune state in real time, even due to a lack of compatibility between different types of data and models. By bringing together immunologists, clinicians, computational biologists, engineers, and ethicists, the BIDT WP is looking to overcome these hurdles through a collaborative and transdisciplinary approach.
The RDA’s overarching mission is to build the social and technical bridges that enable that vision, accomplished through the creation, adoption and use of the social, organisational, and technical infrastructure needed to reduce barriers to data sharing and exchange. Scientists & researchers join forces with technical experts in focused Working Groups, exploratory Interest Groups and Communities of Practice. Individual membership is free and open to all.
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Notes to editors
Dr Yashwanth Subbannayya is available for interview, please contact mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk to arrange.
The full paper is available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667119025000138#sec0002
An image of Dr Subbannayya is available upon request.
Official BIDT WG webpage: https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/building-immune-digital-twins-wg/activity/
ImmunoInformatics