A Brief History of Digital Twin Technology

Abstract: Emerging from NASA's spacecraft simulations in the 1960s, digital twin technology has advanced through industrial adoption to spark a healthcare transformation. A digital twin is a dynamic, data-driven virtual counterpart of a physical system, continuously updated through real-time data streams and capable of bidirectional interaction. In medicine, digital twin integrates imaging, biosensors, and computational models to generate patient-specific simulations that support diagnosis, treatment planning, and drug development. Representative applications include cardiac digital twin for predicting arrhythmia treatment outcomes, oncology digital twin for tracking tumor progression and optimizing radiotherapy, and pharmacological digital twin for accelerating drug discovery. Despite rapid progress, major challenges, including interoperability, data privacy, and model fidelity, continue to limit widespread clinical integration. Emerging solutions such as explainable AI, federated learning, and harmonized regulatory frameworks offer promising pathways forward. Looking ahead, advances in multi-organ digital twin, genomics integration, and ethical governance will be essential to ensure that digital twin shifts healthcare from reactive treatment to predictive, preventive, and truly personalized medicine.