Digital twins could become one of the key tools of future medicine. They will enable not only real-time health monitoring but also the prediction of disease risks and responses to therapy. In Poland, work is underway on the Second Brain project, designed to function as a patient’s digital twin and ultimately to be certified as a medical device. According to its creators, the solution will analyse both a user’s physical and emotional condition and, in the future, help physicians make faster and more accurate diagnoses.
“The future of medicine is not only super-AI, super tools and super technology that allow us to better examine and understand human beings, but also digital twins. Right now, together with Healthcare Poland and the Polish Federation of Hospitals, we are working on creating Second Brain. It will be your medical digital twin, which we want to become a medical device in the future. It will read your emotional state and be able to predict, for example, burnout, even suicidal tendencies or depression. These predictions will be possible thanks to data collected from wearable devices about your physical condition, but also your mental state—what is happening to you and which diseases you may be more likely to develop,”
says Edi Pyrek, co-founder of the Global Artificial Intelligence Alliance (GAIA), in an interview with Newseria.
A digital twin is an advanced computer model that mirrors a physical object or system in a digital environment. In medicine, this means a digital “replica” of a patient on which various simulations, monitoring and real-time analyses of health parameters can be performed. Digital twin technology is a core component of Industry 4.0 and is already used in areas such as factory production-line management or forecasting energy blackouts. In healthcare, it can enable early prediction of potential health problems and model how a patient might respond to a planned therapy.
“Peter Diamandis, founder of XPRIZE and one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley, predicts that by 2028–2030 everyone in the world will have their own digital twin. In Poland, we are probably among the first to be thinking about this,”
Pyrek emphasises.
Market forecasts suggest that this vision is not far off. According to Mordor Intelligence, the global digital twin market in healthcare will close the current year with revenues of $2.81 billion. By the end of the decade, turnover is expected to more than quadruple to $11.37 billion, implying annual growth of roughly one third.
This development trajectory is already reflected in practical implementations. In early October, the journal npj Digital Medicine published results of research conducted by scientists from the University of Melbourne on an AI model called DT-GPT. The model analysed medical data—over varying time scales (hours, weeks or months)—from patients with Alzheimer’s disease or non-small cell lung cancer, as well as from patients admitted to intensive care units. It created digital twins of patients and forecast how their health status would likely change over the course of treatment, thereby helping to predict disease progression.
For ICU patients, digital twins were created for more than 35,000 individuals. The model accurately predicted changes in magnesium levels and oxygen saturation over the following 24 hours. In short-term prediction, the digital twins outperformed 14 other machine-learning models. Researchers also found DT-GPT to be highly effective in predicting several important laboratory parameters, including the detection of mild anaemia, elevated LDH (lactate dehydrogenase) activity, and a marker of progression in non-small cell lung cancer.
As GAIA representatives explain, Second Brain is intended to be an intelligent application designed to connect patients, doctors and hospital administrators into a single, coherent healthcare ecosystem. Initially tested in Poland, the solution will first be aimed at patients. It will provide digital support in moments of uncertainty, translate clinical recommendations into practical steps, send reminders about medications and appointments, monitor well-being, and enable secure teleconsultations and information exchange with physicians.
Ultimately, however, digital twins are expected to find clinical applications as well. They will be able to centralise patient information, automatically prepare draft versions of clinical documentation, and flag cases requiring urgent intervention—while ensuring professional and timely communication with patients.
“We want this to be a product that allows doctors to diagnose better and faster. They will save time because they will not see only the patient at a given moment, but will also have information about what has happened since the last visit—how the patient slept, what they ate, and how it affected them. This will allow physicians not only to diagnose and help us more quickly, but also to teach us one simple truth: that our body, mind and psyche are not separate, and that a human being should be viewed as one integrated organism rather than a set of isolated elements,”
Pyrek explains.
Presented at the Economic Forum in Karpacz, Second Brain demonstrates how patient empowerment and relief for clinical staff can be achieved while respecting hospitals’ operational and regulatory realities. This is particularly important given that the data processed by the technology concern patients’ health and therefore belong to the category of sensitive information.
“Healthcare Poland is an organisation that operates 14 regulatory sandboxes related to AI, including medical devices. They are our partners, and thanks to this cooperation we can create a product that is legally compliant from the very beginning and aligned with the real needs of doctors and patients,”
concludes the GAIA co-founder.
