With further work on the program, the researchers say it could eventually serve as a “digital twin” for testing any drug’s effect on cancer or other conditions, gene environment interactions during brain development, or any number of dynamic cellular molecular processes in people where such studies are not possible.

The new study and examples of cell simulations are described online July 25 in the journal Cell.

According to Genevieve Stein-O’Brien, Ph.D., the Terkowitz Family Rising Professor of Neuroscience and Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the research project began at a workshop for an earlier version of computer software, called PhysiCell, designed by Indiana University engineering professor Paul Macklin, Ph.D.