npj Systems Biology and Applications (Nov 2024)
Immune digital twins for complex human pathologies: applications, limitations, and challenges
- Anna Niarakis,
- Reinhard Laubenbacher,
- Gary An,
- Yaron Ilan,
- Jasmin Fisher,
- Åsmund Flobak,
- Kristin Reiche,
- María Rodríguez Martínez,
- Liesbet Geris,
- Luiz Ladeira,
- Lorenzo Veschini,
- Michael L. Blinov,
- Francesco Messina,
- Luis L. Fonseca,
- Sandra Ferreira,
- Arnau Montagud,
- Vincent Noël,
- Malvina Marku,
- Eirini Tsirvouli,
- Marcella M. Torres,
- Leonard A. Harris,
- T. J. Sego,
- Chase Cockrell,
- Amanda E. Shick,
- Hasan Balci,
- Albin Salazar,
- Kinza Rian,
- Ahmed Abdelmonem Hemedan,
- Marina Esteban-Medina,
- Bernard Staumont,
- Esteban Hernandez-Vargas,
- Shiny Martis B,
- Alejandro Madrid-Valiente,
- Panagiotis Karampelesis,
- Luis Sordo Vieira,
- Pradyumna Harlapur,
- Alexander Kulesza,
- Niloofar Nikaein,
- Winston Garira,
- Rahuman S. Malik Sheriff,
- Juilee Thakar,
- Van Du T. Tran,
- Jose Carbonell-Caballero,
- Soroush Safaei,
- Alfonso Valencia,
- Andrei Zinovyev,
- James A. Glazier
Affiliations
- Anna Niarakis
- Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Unit (MCD), Centre de Biologie Integrative (CBI), University of Toulouse, UPS, CNRS
- Reinhard Laubenbacher
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida
- Gary An
- Department of Surgery, University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine
- Yaron Ilan
- Faculty of Medicine Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical Center
- Jasmin Fisher
- UCL Cancer Institute, University College London, Paul O’Gorman Building, 72 Huntley Street
- Åsmund Flobak
- Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
- Kristin Reiche
- Department of Diagnostics, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology
- María Rodríguez Martínez
- Department of Biomedical Informatics & Data Science, Yale School of Medicine
- Liesbet Geris
- Prometheus Division of Skeletal Tissue Engineering, KU Leuven
- Luiz Ladeira
- Biomechanics Research Unit, GIGA Molecular and Computational Biology, University of Liège
- Lorenzo Veschini
- Faculty of Dentistry Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, King’s College London
- Michael L. Blinov
- Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling, UConn Health
- Francesco Messina
- Department of Epidemiology, Preclinical Research and Advanced Diagnostic, National Institute for Infectious Diseases ‘Lazzaro Spallanzani’ - I.R.C.C.S.
- Luis L. Fonseca
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida
- Sandra Ferreira
- Mathematics Department and Center of Mathematics, University of Beira Interior
- Arnau Montagud
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)
- Vincent Noël
- Institut Curie, Université PSL
- Malvina Marku
- Université de Toulouse, Inserm, CNRS, Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier, Centre de Recherches en Cancérologie de Toulouse
- Eirini Tsirvouli
- Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
- Marcella M. Torres
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Richmond
- Leonard A. Harris
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Arkansas
- T. J. Sego
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida
- Chase Cockrell
- Department of Surgery, University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine
- Amanda E. Shick
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida
- Hasan Balci
- Maastricht Centre for Systems Biology (MaCSBio), Maastricht University
- Albin Salazar
- INRIA Paris/CNRS/École Normale Supérieure/PSL Research University
- Kinza Rian
- Andalusian Platform for Computational Medicine, Andalusian Public Foundation Progress and Health-FPS
- Ahmed Abdelmonem Hemedan
- Bioinformatics Core Unit, Luxembourg Centre of Systems Biomedicine LCSB, Luxembourg University
- Marina Esteban-Medina
- Andalusian Platform for Computational Medicine, Andalusian Public Foundation Progress and Health-FPS
- Bernard Staumont
- Biomechanics Research Unit, GIGA Molecular and Computational Biology, University of Liège
- Esteban Hernandez-Vargas
- Department of Mathematics and Statistical Science, University of Idaho
- Shiny Martis B
- Novadiscovery
- Alejandro Madrid-Valiente
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)
- Panagiotis Karampelesis
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Patras
- Luis Sordo Vieira
- Department of Medicine, University of Florida
- Pradyumna Harlapur
- Department of Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Science
- Alexander Kulesza
- Novadiscovery
- Niloofar Nikaein
- School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Örebro University
- Winston Garira
- Multiscale Mathematical Modelling of Living Systems program (M3-LSP)
- Rahuman S. Malik Sheriff
- European Bioinformatics Institute, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI), Hinxton
- Juilee Thakar
- Department of Microbiology & Immunology and Department of Biostatistics & Computational Biology, University of Rochester Medical Center
- Van Du T. Tran
- Vital-IT Group, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
- Jose Carbonell-Caballero
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)
- Soroush Safaei
- Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Ghent University
- Alfonso Valencia
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)
- Andrei Zinovyev
- In silico R&D, Evotec
- James A. Glazier
- Biocomplexity Institute and Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41540-024-00450-5
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 10,
no. 1
pp. 1 – 14
Abstract
Abstract Digital twins represent a key technology for precision health. Medical digital twins consist of computational models that represent the health state of individual patients over time, enabling optimal therapeutics and forecasting patient prognosis. Many health conditions involve the immune system, so it is crucial to include its key features when designing medical digital twins. The immune response is complex and varies across diseases and patients, and its modelling requires the collective expertise of the clinical, immunology, and computational modelling communities. This review outlines the initial progress on immune digital twins and the various initiatives to facilitate communication between interdisciplinary communities. We also outline the crucial aspects of an immune digital twin design and the prerequisites for its implementation in the clinic. We propose some initial use cases that could serve as “proof of concept” regarding the utility of immune digital technology, focusing on diseases with a very different immune response across spatial and temporal scales (minutes, days, months, years). Lastly, we discuss the use of digital twins in drug discovery and point out emerging challenges that the scientific community needs to collectively overcome to make immune digital twins a reality.
