Queen Mary Biomedical Engineering researchers were recently featured in The Economist.

Their work on developing Digital Twins - "a working model of your body that can be summoned onto a physician’s computer screen" - was featured in their Science and Technology and Leaders pages.

The article explains how it would increase recovery rates, accuracy of diagnosis and reduce the need for risky testing.

“Researchers at Queen Mary University of London already use computer simulations of the hearts of individual patients to evaluate different treatments for atrial fibrillation, a common disorder. It would be far too risky to experiment this way on someone’s real heart. With other organs also being twinned by scientists, it seems likely they will eventually link up to form a virtual body.”

The author reflects on the use of AI to take this technology further, particularly with the ability to predict health outcomes, as well as the potential for data hacking or errors in programming.