VISION
Virtual Human Twin (VHT) is an integrated multiscale, multi-time, and multi-discipline representation of quantitative human physiology and pathology. Its realisation through a collaborative distributed knowledge and resource platform is specifically designed to accelerate the development, integration, and adoption of patient-specific predictive computer models, which will be used as clinical decision support systems, for personal health forecasting or as methodologies for the development and de-risking of personalised medical products. The vision of EDITH is to facilitate the realisation of the opportunities presented by VHTs for the benefit of patients, healthcare providers, regulatory bodies and industry, both within Europe and globally.
MISSION
EDITH is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA), funded by the European Commission, which will capitalise on the developments of digital technologies, high performance computing, availability and access to research and healthcare data in Europe, with the mission of defining a roadmap to go from separated single organ systems, to data-driven and knowledge-driven fully integrated multiscale and multiorgan whole-body twin. EDITH will facilitate this process by building an evolutionary ecosystem, driven by a consensus among the relevant European communities, and implemented through the aid of practical tools, such as a data/model repository (within the scope of EDITH), and a simulation platform (to be implemented after EDITH).
FOCUS
A Virtual Human Twin (VHT) is a patient-specific virtual representation of real-world systems or processes, that is built on data-driven or knowledge-driven - most often a combination of both - predictive computer models, and that can be used as a clinical decision-support system, a personal health forecasting tool or as a tool for the development and personalisation of medical products. The focus of EDITH is to propose how a fully integrated VHT can be developed, starting from single organ digital twins.
OBJECTIVES
The goals of EDITH are to tangibly foster a sustainable ecosystem. Starting from a comprehensive roadmap of the current landscape, EDITH will implement a federated cloud-based repository, gathering human digital twin resources (models, data sets, algorithms, good practices), and design the architecture of a simulation platform to facilitate the transition towards the use of comprehensive Virtual Human Twin (VHT) models in personalised medicine.