How a digital twin of a lung can help recover from Covid-19

A Sat1 documentary illustrates the work of Bavarian researchers on fighting the Coronavirus and reducing the number of fatalities. The TV feature provides insights into the work of Prof. Wall, Head of TUM’s Institute for Computational Mechanics & Center for Computational Biomedical Engineering and MSB-PI. Together with the TUM-spinoff company Ebenbuild, Prof. Wall and his team developed a software based on simulations, that enables medical practitioners to adjust mechanical ventilators more precisely for patients suffering from Covid-19.
Furthermore, the TV feature highlights the work at the quarantine station at TUM’s Klinikum rechts der Isar and into research on vaccine development conducted at TUM’s Institute of Virology and Helmholtz Zentrum Munich. 

Patients suffering from severe Covid-19 often depend on mechanical ventilation to ensure oxygen supply, but wrong settings may lead to the distension of the lungs.
To this day, the possibilities to assess or calculate ventilation critical parameters for the settings of mechanical ventilators are limited.

Using their expertise in modeling the human respiratory system and by combining artificial intelligence (AI) with medical imaging and other clinical data as well as with physics-based simulation, the researchers around Prof. Wall and from Ebenbuild, developed a software that creates a digital twin of a patients lung. Using this digital twin of the lung and AI methods one can calculate patient specific parameters for the mechanical ventilation.

“One of the driving forces for these research efforts was the search for a better understanding and an improvement of mechanical ventilation for patients suffering from acute respiratory failure (ARDS, i.e. Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) – which is exactly what severe cases of Covid-19 are developing”, states Prof. Wall.

Watch the TV feature (only available in German) on the Webpage of Sat1. The report about the software starts at 13:17.