Digital twins for radiotherapy

A Digital Twin in oncology is a dynamic, virtual representation of a specific cancer patient that integrates multimodal data (e.g., imaging, genomics, treatment history, and physiological models) to simulate, predict, and optimize treatment planning, delivery, and outcomes. 

This research line focuses on Digital Twins development, particularly on radiotherapy treatment. Among the different modeling approaches, we particularly appreciate mechanistic models, which describe the mechanism governing the phenomena.  

These research activities have been developed in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano, particularly with Prof. Paolo Zunino (Mathematics Dept.). 

Here are a few examples related to our work: 

- We built a prototype of a digital twin for the microenvironment to simulate the oxygen delivery within the tissue, with the final aim of estimating radiotherapy efficacy 

- We are developing digital twins to provide a quantitative guide when shaping breast cancer patients’ follow-up and screening programs to assess the risk or presence of subclinical diseases. (TETRIS project) - https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101166699/en  

- Another running project (HI-ROC project) is exploring the feasibility of biomarkers generated by digital twins to personalized radiotherapy schedules - https://www.eppermed.eu/funding-projects/projects-results/project-database/hi-roc/