Digital twins of human organs are here. They’re set to transform medical treatment.

MIT Technology Review December 19, 2024
Jessica Hamzelou

A healthy heart beats at a steady rate, between 60 and 100 times a minute. That’s not the case for all of us, I’m reminded, as I look inside a cardboard box containing around 20 plastic hearts—each a replica of a real human one.

The hearts, which previously sat on a shelf in a lab in West London, were generated from MRI and CT scans of people being treated for heart conditions at Hammersmith Hospital next door. Steven Niederer, a biomedical engineer at the Alan Turing Institute and Imperial College London, created them on a 3D printer in his office.

One of the hearts, printed in red recycled plastic, looks as I imagine a heart to look. It just about...

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