EMPA technicians and clinicians from the University of Bern have developed avatars of real patients on which to simulate various types of therapies

I “digital twins” allow personalized medical therapies. The researchers of theEMPA they have now fashioned several hundred of these avatar based on real people and treated them experimentally. Not only that: for the first time, the "digital twins" have received feedback from real patients.
The enormous progress of the modern medicine enable us to provide patients with better quality of life even during serious illnesses.
- synthetic opiates, for example, can be used to check i shooting pains caused by cancer. However, the determination ofexact dosage remains a decisive challenge.
Painkillers, such as the Fentanyl, must be administered with precision to be effective, but without harming patients with side effects sometimes life-threatening.

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The painkilling patches: non-invasive, but difficult to dose

Currently, such painkillers are administered throughepidermis by means of Patches, among other methods: a gentle, non-invasive method that helps patients return to their normal daily life. However, the appropriate dosage can only be determined through trial and error.
Reactions to a underdosing or a overdose they are only seen in retrospect, when the drug has long since abandoned the plaster.
This is now set to change: to ensure that the correct dosage of drugs can be determined and maintained constant for each individual patient, by applying what are called "personalised care", the researchers of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technologyi, together with a team from theUniversity of Bern, are using computer and data sciences.
The team led by Thijs Defraeye of the laboratory “Biomimetic membranes and fabrics” of EMPA a St. Gallen uses multiphysics modeling to develop a digital twin of the Human Bodywhich allows doctors to monitor and predict the course of therapy.

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Data (age, lifestyle, etc.) from real people

For hundreds of avatars treated in the mathematical models, tools on which the complex "digital twin" of the patient being treated, the researchers took into account a huge variety of variables derived from individuals in the flesh, such as theage and lifestyle.
This is because the effect of a drug is influenced by a plethora of physical parameters which can vary greatly from person to person.
“When creating an avatar, we take into consideration, for example, how the drug is metabolized in the body during treatment and how much it ultimately gets to the pain center in the person's brain”, explains Dr. Defraeye.
To ensure that the dosage is not only safe but also effective, the twin of… silicon can also receive a physiological and psychological feedback from real patients. For example, humans provide information about whether and to what extent they continue to perceive pain.

The length of pain-free periods is the definitive information

Of particular interest in these studies is the length of pain-free periods. And since not every day is good, and life is filled with unpredictable events, the actual pain perception of those affected also varies much more than one medical examination every two weeks can monitor.
“With this kind of feedback from humans, the avatar can dynamically adjust the therapy and even predict its course”, explains the EMPA researcher Flora Bahrami.
In the future, the sensors will also measure other physiological parameters such as heartbeat and breath frequency in real time and will report it to the avatar.

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Different regimes for men and women, for young and old

So far, several hundred personalized avatars have been created and individual therapies tested virtually in collaboration with theCantonal hospital di St. Gallen.
“We have already been able to demonstrate that the optimal treatment regimen for women and men, as well as for young and old, it differs significantly”, continues Dr. Bahrami.
La pain therapy with transdermal patches it is only the beginning of the treatment assisted by theavatar, However.
In collaboration with clinics and hospitals, EMPA researchers have already turned their attention to other therapies, such as the administration of insulin for diabetes, using the therapeutic strategy of “digital twins”