From genomes to digital twins; developments and challenges

Abstract

Our vision of precision medicine is evolving from genomic analysis to dynamic, mechanistic digital twins, as systems that can simulate disease progression and therapeutic response in silico. This talk will explore the current situation and limitations of these development. 

I will outline how computational frameworks now enable multiscale simulations that integrate tissue-scale models with intracellular signalling and metabolism, providing a dynamic platform to facilitate the interpretation of complex data and to generate hypotheses that can be followed by experiments.

I will discuss how HPC-powered digital twins can be combined with other approaches in the exploration of potential drugs treatments or drug synergies. Ultimately, providing an integrated path from the personal genome data, particularly single cell data, to mechanism to therapy, closing the loop between molecular diagnostics and personalised therapeutic prediction. 

The talk will address key developments, including European-led tools and workflows for simulating tumour growth or drug synergies, and the pivotal role of initiatives like the European Health Data Space (EHDS) in securely connecting HPC to clinical data. I will also highlight the formidable challenges ahead: scaling simulations to exascale and integrating biological complexity across scales. 

Finally, I will address the new opportunities created by the AI agentic frameworks for the automating model generation and, in a more general manner, the importance of the combination of AI and digital twins, in what is for me the key for the future of this research area.

Bio
Dr Alfonso Valencia's research interest is the development of Computational Biology methods and their application to biomedical problems. Some of the computational methods he developed are considered pioneering work in areas such as biological text mining, protein coevolution, disease networks and more recently modelling cellular systems (digital twins). He participates in some of the key cancer related international consortia. 

Hosted by PI María Jose Alonso. Nanomedicine & Drug Delivery group, CiMUS

Certificates of attendance will be provided upon request at cimus.xestion [at] usc.es (cimus[dot]xestion[at]usc[dot]es). Please do not forget to enter your name and surname in the printout given during the lecture.