The virtual twin concept was introduced several decades ago. From replicas of airplanes and automobiles – which allow you to digitally simulate all phases of their creation, production and operation – to the simulation of cities like Singapore, in order to experiment with all the management processes of a metropolis and, for example, analyze the impact of introducing a roundabout instead of a traffic light or a change in waste collection.
The potential of a tool of this type is almost infinite. However, thanks to the unstoppable advance of the computing power of computers, the amount of data available and the artificial intelligence algorithms capable of analyzing them, new frontiers are opening up. For example, we can imagine creating a virtual and personalized twin also of the human being, equal to us up to the cellular level.
This is what the French Dassault Systèmes has been working on since 2012, a company with a turnover of 4 billion euros and 20,000 employees that uses the 3DExperience platform and its capabilities in terms of modeling, simulation and data analysis for this purpose. But where does all this lead? “Step by step, we want to arrive at the complete simulation and configuration of the human body,” explained Dassault Systèmes CEO Bernard Charlès. “In this way, it will be possible to discover new treatments, conquer an even more sophisticated surgery and also more easily understand the mechanism of propagation of a virus”.
Using the virtual twin, doctors and researchers can visualize, test, understand and predict what would otherwise be impossible to detect: from the effect of drugs on a disease to the outcome of surgery. But the complete digital reproduction of a human being is still to come: for the moment, the most advanced reproduction developed by Dassault Systèmes concerns the 3D simulation of the human heart through the Living Heart program, launched in 2014. After developing new systems for the insertion, positioning and analysis of cardiovascular devices, the goal for the next five years is to simulate the heart in clinical trials, at least partially replacing tests on humans and animals.
Not only that: providing doctors and surgeons with a realistic model of the heart, configured according to the individual patient, will enormously increase the level of personalization of the treatments that can be offered to people, analyzing the progression of heart disease over time and visualizing the potential outcomes of the different treatment options.
But this is only the first step: again Dassault Systèmes is already working on the digital reproduction of the human brain – also collaborating with the Human Brain Project promoted by the European Union – with the aim, among other things, of fighting epilepsy and prevent senile dementia. And tomorrow, perhaps, we will be able to have our complete customized digital avatar that will simulate the functioning of the heart, brain, muscles, blood circulation, respiratory tract and more. At that point, the behavior of the human body – in many ways still mysterious today – will become increasingly clear.
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