A CNIO-led 2.5 million euro project to develop ‘digital twins’ for women with cancer

The detailed analysis of the genome of tens of thousands of cancer patients around the world has in recent years identified new targets and biomarkers to predict drug response. But much of the variability in the patients’ response remains to be explained, which limits truly personalized therapeutic decisions.

To advance this goal, the CNIO will lead the project High-definition oncology in women’s cancer project, will receive 2.5 million euros over the next 3 years and involves 12 research centers and universities from all over Spain (see list below).

Researchers will remotely monitor the patients to capture large amounts of personal data about them. This information will then be used to build computational models in the patients’ image and likeness: Patient-Digital Twins (PDTs) in women’s cáncer.

These virtual twins can give clues about, for example, how every patient will respond to a certain drug.

Data on patients’ emotions and use of social networks

For remote monitoring wearable body devices will be used, such as digital bracelets that will record pulse rate, blood oxygen concentration and physical activity, among other variables.

A particularly innovative aspect is that activity on social networks and cell phone use in general will also be taken into account, as well as emotions and statements on quality of life. Added to all this will be the detailed analysis of genes (genomics); proteins (proteomics); metabolic activity; microbiome; and medical history data.

Until now, “precision medicine has taken into account genomics and little else,” explains the project’s principal investigator Miguel A. Quintela, head of the CNIO’s Breast Cancer Clinical Research Unit. “The digital twins we want to develop include factors that are more difficult to measure, but that make up the whole patient. It’s about understanding patients as a multidimensional system.”

“PDTs will enable an assessment, management and understanding of each individual’s oncologic process,” adds Quintela. It is expected, for example, to “detect early deviations from positive disease trajectories and drive precise and tailored interventions.”

The project has been selected in the call Medicina Personalizada de Precisión 2022 (PMP22), from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII). It is funded through the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM) of the NextGeneration EU Funds, within the Plan for Recovery, Transformation and Resilience (PRTR).

Other participants in this CNIO-led Project are: La Princesa Hospital; Fuenlabrada Hospital; Hospital Clínico de Valencia; Hospital Son Espases; ICO Bellvitge; Complejo Hospitalario de Navarra; Hospital Virgen de la Macarena; Hospital San Pedro de Cáceres; Complejo Hospitalario A Coruña; Universidad Carlos III; Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Image: Miguel A. Quintela, head of the CNIO Breast Cancer Clinical Research Unit/Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.