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Virtual You review: The quest to build your digital twin

It would be the ultimate in personalised medicine: a digital version of your body, which doctors could use to predict what diseases might befall you and your future health. A new book from Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield asks if it is possible

By Claire Ainsworth

29 March 2023

HANGZHOU, CHINA - NOVEMBER 24, 2022 - Visitors interact with the "self" using digital twin technology at the Metaverse exhibition area of the China International Cartoon and Animation Festival in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, Nov 24, 2022. (Photo credit should read CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

A person interacts with their digital twin in Hangzhou, China

CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Virtual You
Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield (Princeton University Press)

IMAGINE a future where science has created your twin. Not a flesh-and-blood twin, but one that recreates your flesh and blood, your bones, your heart, your brain – your whole body, in fact – as an exquisitely sophisticated computer model.

Your doctors can use this digital twin to work out how you will respond to a particular drug or medical procedure. They can even look further into the future, creating a “healthcast”, a …

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