HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-04: Virtual Human Twins for Rheumatic Disease – Clinical Validation Partner

VIRTUAL HUMAN TWINS FOR PERSONALISED PREVENTION AND DIAGNOSIS IN RHEUMATIC DISEASES

Organisation: Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo (ESPOCH), Ecuador

Target call: HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-04 – Virtual Human Twins (VHTs) for integrated clinical decision support in prevention and diagnosis.

RESEARCH FOCUS

ESPOCH seeks to join an established European-led consortium developing and clinically validating patient-specific, multi-scale and multi-organ Virtual Human Twins for personalised prevention and diagnosis. Our suggested clinical use case is chronic inflammatory and musculoskeletal disease, with particular interest in rheumatoid arthritis, multimorbidity and functional decline.

We envisage a model integrating longitudinal clinical observations, laboratory and imaging information with relevant physiological and biomechanical components. Model architecture, computational development and choice of use cases would be agreed with experienced European VHT partners.

EXISTING EXPERIENCE

ESPOCH has conducted epidemiological research on rheumatic diseases in Chimborazo Province and has developed proposals for AI-assisted clinical research and personalised rehabilitation. Rheumatology care settings in Riobamba maintain longitudinal medical records covering clinical follow-up, laboratory investigations and imaging. The number of eligible records, completeness of variables and permissions for research reuse remain to be assessed.

ESPOCH has also proposed an interdisciplinary Institute of Computational Medicine and Artificial Intelligence (IMCIA), intended to connect health sciences, engineering and data science. This initiative is a strategic proposal, not an operational VHT platform or established institute.

POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS

• Clinical definition of relevant rheumatology, multimorbidity and prevention/diagnosis use cases.

• Expert interpretation of inflammatory disease activity, laboratory markers, imaging and longitudinal clinical outcomes.

• Feasibility assessment of retrospective datasets and prospective clinical research in Ecuador.

• Potential external clinical validation, including generalisability and equity across diverse patient populations.

• Patient and clinician engagement, implementation feasibility and assessment of care-pathway integration.

PARTNERS SOUGHT

We seek European coordinators and established VHT consortia with expertise in multi-scale/multi-organ computational modelling, systems biology, biomechanics, AI and explainability, interoperability, clinical validation, health economics, ethics, social sciences and regulatory affairs.

EXPECTED COLLABORATION

ESPOCH proposes to contribute primarily as a clinical and academic partner, not as the developer of an existing Virtual Human Twin. Partners would jointly assess clinical use-case relevance, data readiness, research ethics, governance and suitable validation endpoints. Clinical studies, data access, technical roles, budget and intellectual-property arrangements would require formal agreements and applicable approvals.

CONTACT

Dr. Urbano Solis Cartas
Rheumatologist and Coordinator, Medicine Degree Programme
Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo (ESPOCH)
Riobamba, Ecuador

We welcome enquiries from European research coordinators and consortia preparing collaborative proposals for Horizon Europe Health 2027.