Groundbreaking €11.7M Project Aims for Clinical Validation by 2029
Vall d'Hebron University Hospital has launched a pioneering initiative to co-develop human digital twins with technology firms, becoming the first hospital in Europe to issue a public tender for such a collaboration. The project, funded with €11.7 million in European funds over three years, aims to create computational models capable of simulating disease progression and predicting individual patient responses to treatment. Dr Manel Escobar, Clinical Director of Radiodiagnosis at Vall d'Hebron and project lead, explained that digital twins involve replicating a specific disease or organ function in a computational environment using clinical, imaging, pathological anatomy, and genomic data from many patients with the same condition. These models are intended to support personalised medicine by enabling doctors to test treatments virtually before applying them to real patients.
Focus on Congenital Heart Disease, Migraines, and Liver Tumours
The hospital will focus initially on pathologies where it is a national and international reference, including congenital heart disease, migraines, and liver tumours. Since no current technology can model the entire human body, the project will develop targeted digital replicas using artificial intelligence algorithms trained on real patient data. "The more elements we include in the models for training, such as comorbidities, patient habits, or other influencing factors, the more reliable they will be," said Escobar. The ultimate goal is to allow clinicians to input data from a new patient and receive personalised predictions about disease evolution and optimal therapies.
Two patients who share the same pathology do not necessarily have to evolve in the same way.
, Dr Manel Escobar, Clinical Director of Radiodiagnosis, Vall d'Hebron
Path to Clinical Use and Broader Applications
Although digital twins are not yet clinically validated for routine use, Vall d'Hebron’s project is designed to produce robust, validated models by December 2029. After model development, the next phase will involve multicentre clinical validation to ensure reliability across different healthcare settings. Escobar noted that while the initial models will be disease-specific, the methodology developed could later be applied to other conditions. All knowledge generated will be transferable, potentially accelerating the adoption of digital twins across multiple medical fields. The tender, published via the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) Institute, invites tech companies already active in digital twin research to collaborate with Vall d'Hebron’s clinical experts. The hospital’s existing 3D modelling unit and prior research in virtual physiological systems provide a strong foundation for the project. According to Escobar, the initiative builds on previous research and will help uncover new factors influencing disease outcomes, ultimately leading to more effective diagnostics, monitoring, and therapies. He predicts digital twins will become increasingly common in clinical practice in the coming years.
Sources: La Razón Cataluña, vallhebron.com.
