A digital twin in healthcare, could it work?

Professor Paul Lee believes a digital twin is an idea for improving healthcare.

A model of you that runs alongside you, built from your data, your movement patterns, your blood markers, hormone levels, sleep cycles, DNA and epigenetics. 

Every piece of information we can gather feeds into this model. The
more data we put in, the clearer the picture becomes.

A digital twin is exactly that: a living record of you, a model that reflects not just where you are now but how you’re changing over time. That alone is powerful. It means we can spot a decline early, correct the course before it becomes a crisis and personalise interventions to the individual rather than the average.

The twin isn’t just about tracking forwards, it’s about preserving backwards. Imagine this: at 55, we capture your biology when it’s strong, resilient and stable. Then, at 60, if something starts to fail, we don’t just treat the symptoms, we look back at the 55-year-old version of you and we ask: how do we restore those cells, that function, that resilience?

• Could this work?
• How can AI be used in healthcare in this way?
• What else could AI be used for in healthcare?

Responses today please.