Wroclaw Medical University (UMW) has received €259,000 in funding to implement the TWIN-X project under the Horizon Europe programme. The international consortium, of which UMW is a partner, has secured nearly €15 million in total for an initiative focused on developing patient “digital twins” supported by generative artificial intelligence.
The implementation of the project “Multimodal Digital TWINs with Generative AI for eXplainable Precision Medicine” (TWIN-X) is planned for 48 months. At UMW, the project is coordinated by Dr Paweł Gajdzis from the Department of Clinical Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine, who will lead the work in collaboration with Prof. Piotr Donizy.
The aim of TWIN-X is to develop interactive digital twins of patients, primarily oncology patients. The solution will integrate various types of medical data—including radiological, pathological and clinical data, laboratory test results, and even social conditions—to support research in precision medicine.
“A patient’s digital twin will take the form of a modular, clinically coherent model that researchers will be able to analyse and update through structured queries, ‘what-if’ simulations and counterfactual scenario analyses (for example, how the course of a disease might have changed under a different clinical approach or treatment),” explains Dr Paweł Gajdzis. “The project also enables comparisons of therapeutic strategies and provides insight into predicted clinical trajectories. Particular emphasis is placed on analytical transparency: users will have access to the source data used to generate results, and the justifications will be concise, verifiable and based on structured information rather than free-form model responses.”
As a project partner, UMW—drawing on the resources of the University Clinical Hospital—will collect pathological data from oncology patients, particularly those with gastrointestinal and lung cancers, necessary for creating digital twins.
“Our researchers will also participate in data analysis and in developing clinical models of patients with various diseases,” adds Dr Gajdzis. “This research may enable the faster development of new, more effective clinical guidelines and recommendations and, above all, improve patient care by reducing the risk of potential medical errors.”
The main goal of the project is to accelerate the generation of reliable scientific results and to develop tools for testing research hypotheses without the need for direct patient involvement.
The TWIN-X consortium includes 19 institutions, and the project is led by Klinikum der Technischen Universität München. UMW is the only Polish partner participating in this initiative.
Horizon Europe projects play an important role in evaluating the quality of a university’s research activity and in strengthening its international recognition.