European Commission supports initiative Digital Twins
The European Commission has invited research initiative DigiTwins to enter the next stage of the competition to become an EU Flagship for Future and Emerging Technologies. DigiTwins, a large research initiative in Europe and beyond, aims at revolutionizing healthcare and biomedical research for the benefit of citizens and society through the creation of Digital Twins. These twins are accurate computer models of the key biological processes within every individual that keep us healthy or lead to disease, will be used to identify individually optimal therapies as well as preventive and lifestyle measures, without exposing individuals to unnecessary risks and healthcare systems to unnecessary costs. The Department of International Health at the UM Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML) is one of the main partners of DigiTwins.
Revolutionary development
Prof. Angela Brand (FHML): “We support DigiTwins, because we believe in DigiTwins’ promise to create a personal Digital Twin for every European citizen and their revolutionary potential for our digital health society.” According to Prof. Hans Lehrach (Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin) this invitation brings DigiTwins a significant step closer to the establishment of a system of truly personalized healthcare and health maintenance throughout Europe, which will save millions of lives and billions of healthcare costs in the future.
Flagship
FET-Flagships are science- and technology-driven, large-scale, multidisciplinary research initiatives built around a visionary unifying goal that are promoted and financed by the European Commission under its Research and Innovation Program Horizon 2020 with one billion euros over ten years.
DigiTwins community
DigiTwins is a large research initiative that aims at establishing a personal Digital Twin for every European citizen. The community consists of more than 200 partners from industry, academic and clinical research institutions in 32 different countries. DigiTwins combines a transdisciplinary team of visionary scientists, clinicians, public health experts, policy makers, medical informatics experts, experts in Artificial Intelligence, experienced science management professionals, serial entrepreneurs, industry researchers and patient group representatives as well as experts from cross-cutting fields, such as economics, regulation, ethics, health insurance, data security and privacy. The initiative is led by Prof. Hans Lehrach (Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Dr. Nora Benhabiles (CEA - French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission) and Dr. Rolf Zettl (BIH - Berlin Institute of Health).
Interested parties are invited to join the DigiTwins community to contribute actively or simply stay up-to-date on the initiative’s activities via the DigiTwins website.
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