Digipredict digital twin will predict the evolution of Covid-19

© 2020 EPFL - Under a cross-disciplinary program spearheaded by EPFL, scientists will develop an AI-based system that can predict whether Covid-19 patients will develop severe cardiovascular complications and, in the longer term, detect the likely onset of inflammatory disease. Covid-19 comes with a range of symptoms - from a sore throat and the loss of taste to more serious ones like lung failure. But how can doctors predict how serious the disease will be when it first manifests? "The interaction between the viral infection, the host's response, and the development of cardiovascular inflammation and injury is still poorly understood. It's hard to know whether a patient's symptoms will remain mild or rapidly deteriorate and trigger multiple organ failure," says Adrian Ionescu, a professor at EPFL's Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory, within the School of Engineering. If doctors could use a scientific method to better understand and predict the likelihood of a patient's condition worsening, they could more effectively screen patients at hospitals and deliver personalized care. To that end, EPFL has launched a pan-European research program called Digipredict. The goal is to develop a digital twin that can detect serious complications in Covid-19 patients, employing breakthrough technology in the fields of artificial intelligence, smart patches and organs-on-chips.