Digital twins in bioscience, environmental and medical science community workshop

Overview

Digital twins (DT) and their application are an area of growing interest within the bioscience, environmental and medical science research and innovation community.

BBSRC, NERC, MRC and DTNet+ will jointly run a hybrid community workshop focussed on DT in bioscience, environmental and medical science on Wednesday 18 September 2024 at Rothamsted Conference Centre.

The event aims to create a better shared understanding of the DT landscape as it relates to the bioscience, environmental and medical science research and innovation communities, including better insight into the discipline specific opportunities and challenges.

Areas relevant to the workshop include the below, as well as areas of synergy where appropriate and other disciplinary perspectives relevant to or progressing towards DT. 

• Bioscience: DT and their application are an area of growing interest within the biosciences research and innovation community. DT have potential to transform bioscience research and discovery, including but not limited to areas like understanding rules of life, sustainable agriculture and food, integrated understanding of health, and advanced manufacturing and clean growth. 
• Environmental science: DT are being used increasingly to improve the understanding, modelling and prediction of events, inform future decision-making, and test the impacts of different scenarios and interventions. Recent examples of application have included: water-related hazard forecasting, synchronising Earth observation and modelling frameworks towards a digital twin ocean and reducing the carbon emissions of large research infrastructure. AI-enabled DT are also being used to deliver decision-support tools in the area of ecosystem restoration and sustainable land management. 
• Medical science: There remains uncertainty about the best way to deliver the potential of DT to improve our understanding and management of health and disease. DT in the medical science context can span personalised or systems understanding of: chemical and molecular mechanisms and discovery; organs and physiology; exposures and prevention; detection, diagnosis and monitoring; resilience, progression and optimal intervention. The importance of DT for health services and delivery is recognised as an important consideration but is out of scope as a primary focus within this context.  

The whole day hybrid event (approx. 9:30 to 16:00) provides options for in person and remote attendance. The format is expected to be a mixture of presentations, facilitated discussions and networking opportunities.

While broad participation is explicitly encouraged, we reserve the right to limit the total participant numbers should the level of interest substantially exceed the capacity of the event.

What happens next

While broad participation is explicitly encouraged, we reserve the right to limit the total participant numbers should the level of interest substantially exceed the capacity of the event. If limiting participant numbers is required we will use the following selection criteria:

• Relevance of research interests
• Balance of research interests across the participants
• Balance of representation across career stages and roles
• Balance of organisations and departments
• Equality, diversity and inclusion considerations.

Selection of participants will be undertaken by BBSRC, NERC, MRC and DTNet+ with the outcome notified by 11 September. We also reserve the right to invite additional participants directly. If you have any questions, please email tt@bbsrc.ukri.org.