Virtual You review: The quest to build your digital twin

Virtual You
Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield (Princeton University Press)

IMAGINE a future where science has created your twin. Not a flesh-and-blood twin, but one that recreates your flesh and blood, your bones, your heart, your brain – your whole body, in fact – as an exquisitely sophisticated computer model.

Your doctors can use this digital twin to work out how you will respond to a particular drug or medical procedure. They can even look further into the future, creating a “healthcast”, a …