EDITH summary
EDITH is the Coordination Support Action (October 2022- September 2024) funded under the Digital Europe Program (DIGITAL-2021-DEPLOY-01-TWINS-HEALTH), coordinated by Virtual Physiological Human Institute (VPHi), that aims to build the Ecosystem for Digital Twins in Healthcare, equipping all European stakeholders with the right infrastructure and tools to develop the so-called Integrated Virtual Human Twin. The Integrated Virtual Human Twin is to be an integrated multi-scale, multi-time, and multi-disciple representation of quantitative human physiology and pathology. As the question of interest will determine what features are useful to include in a model, the Virtual Human Twin will create a ‘level playing field’ where all available resources (models, data, algorithms) can be combined if and when needed. Its realization through a collaborative distributed knowledge and resource platform is specifically designed to accelerate the development, integration and adoption of patient-specific predictive computer models. These models can be knowledge-driven, data-driven or both and the interaction with their physical counterpart (the patient) can be real-time (as in the classical engineering definition of the digital twin) or not. This includes models to be used as clinical decision support systems, for personal health forecasting or as methodologies for the development and de-risking of personalized medical products. This CSA should provide a general vision and a roadmap for deploying the Integrated Virtual Human Twin, including the establishment of a federated cloud-based repository for sharing of resources between stakeholders as well as the design of a simulation platform where all stakeholders can actively interact with and integrate the aforementioned resources and link directly to the appropriate compute infrastructure (cloud, edge, high performance computing).
EDITH is bringing together the entire ecosystem, i.e., academia, industry, healthcare professionals, regulatory agencies, policy makers, HTA, patients and payers, from software, hardware, devices and pharma backgrounds. The ecosystem is leveraged through expert meetings, online working groups, community meetings, surveys etc. to identify the research challenges and required infrastructure that will facilitate the integration of different models, algorithms and data sets across different organ systems and spatiotemporal scales. Several use cases will be developed as early-stage demonstrators of the range and potential of the simulation platform. In the second year of the project (after summer 2023), we will launch a call for new demonstrators, allowing all researchers, companies and stakeholders to actively engage with the CSA project and align with the technological, ethical and legal concepts that would allow for a seamless integration in the future platform. It is through participation in the meetings and inclusion of project-specific use cases as demonstrators that ongoing and new project will be able to actively engage with the EDITH project.
The required efforts will include substantial developments on the technological side, supported by linked initiatives such as the European Health Data Space, FAIRDOM-SEEK or the EBRAINS project. Additionally, there is a strong focus on ensuring the appropriated ethical, social and legal frameworks by influencing the future European policies on the use of in silico methods in healthcare.
Interaction with HLTH-TOOL-05-03
The call text of the HLTH-TOOL-05-03 call explicitly calls for alignment with activities of the EDITH project. We advise to include the following elements in the proposal:
- Strategic element: participation in the public meetings, community surveys and open writing phase of the roadmap.
- Resource element: add relevant (sub) models and public data sources that are present at the start or in the early phases of the project into the repository that will be built during the EDITH project.
- Technical element: foresee a specific task or subtask to create the necessary metadata and wrapper to integrate the public portion of the models and data sets generated in the proposed project into the VHT platform that should be built towards the end of the proposed project’s runtime.
EDITH public deliverables and information session
On April 6th at 3pm we will organise a public webinar to answer questions related to the engagement of EDITH in the TOOL-05-03 call. The first version of the vision on the integrated Virtual Human Twin (deliverable D3.1) is available now (links below). Additional public discussion meetings will be organised in May and June to go in depth on the proposed concepts described in the deliverable.
The first version of the entire roadmap, developed by the EDITH consortium with the close support and collaboration of several advisory boards (clinical, industrial, etc.) and experts representing the ecoystem can be accessed through our website and via Zenodo from August 2023. At that time, more information will be available on the public on-site meetings and the way in which use cases and resources can be contributed to the repository.
Useful Links
- EDITH Website: Deliverable 3.1: VHT Vision and Roadmap Outline: here
- Expression of interest: here
- EDITH-CSA Zenodo Community: here
- Deliverable 3.1: VHT Vision and Roadmap Outline: here
- Registration April 6th webinar: here
(GoTo Meeting link is included at the bottom of the registration confirmation email)