Harvard University-hosted event explores initiative to realize the future of precision healthcare
News Highlights:
- NTT Research is hosting its annual Medical & Health Informatics (MEI) Lab Summit at Harvard University Nov. 3-6 alongside research collaborators from Harvard, Japan’s National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center and the Technical University of Munich.
- The summit explores advancements to the MEI Lab’s Bio Digital Twin Initiative, which aims to address underlying physiological complexity through precision healthcare innovations integrating bioelectronics, biohybrid robotics and autonomous closed loop control.
- Researchers are exploring how best to implement emerging technologies like artificial intelligence into the Bio Digital Twin Initiative.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Nov. 5, 2025 – NTT Research, Inc., a division of NTT (TYO: 9432), is hosting its annual Medical & Health Informatics (MEI) Lab Summit at Harvard University Nov. 3-6, 2025 to advance its Bio Digital Twin Initiative. The event brings together the MEI Lab’s global network of researchers, including scientists from NTT Research, Harvard University, the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center (NCVC) in Osaka, Japan and the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
The Bio Digital Twin (BioDT) Initiative aims to represent biological processes in software models to enable healthcare providers to test medications and device interventions without risk of harm to the patient. The researchers’ initial focus is on the realization of precision cardiology through the development of a cardiovascular bio digital twin (CV BioDT) in acute heart failure, as heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world—accounting for nearly 18 million deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization.
“The Bio Digital Twin Initiative aims to fundamentally enhance the capabilities of precision healthcare, saving lives by not only tailoring treatment to the individual but bridging health equity gaps across the globe through customized clinical decision support and autonomous care solutions,” said NTT Research MEI Lab Director Joe Alexander. “Achieving these goals requires the cross-disciplinary collaboration of the world’s most innovative biomedical researchers and engineers. This summit is an opportunity to bring this typically remote network together to both celebrate our team’s achievements and prepare for the challenging work that lies ahead.”
A Global Network of Scientific Collaboration
The MEI Lab has built a global network of scientific collaborators operating largely virtually through CV BioDT joint research agreements with three organizations: Harvard University, TUM and the NCVC.
“NTT Research operates on a foundational belief in the necessity of private investment in fundamental research to drive technological breakthroughs, echoing the spirit of giants such as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC,” said NTT Research President and CEO Kazu Gomi. “Adopting that belief in the 21st century requires us to find new ways to connect and collaborate with researchers across the globe. The Bio Digital Twin Initiative exemplifies this commitment to collaboration that allows the brightest scientific minds in the world—regardless of location—to contribute to the future of innovation.”
Joint research with Harvard focuses on innovations in tissue engineering and biohybrid robotics, which combine living biological materials with synthetic components to create robots with enhanced capabilities, such as the promotion of self-healing and repair. In February 2025, NTT Research and Harvard scientists published a groundbreaking paper in Science Robotics on the machine-learning directed optimization of biohybrid minirays made out of tissue-engineered cardiac muscle cells.
The joint research agreement with TUM focuses on the development of biointerfaces—engineered tissues that enable biological interactions for the purpose of physiologic monitoring and control. This collaboration has resulted in numerous joint top-tier publications and patent applications filed on flexible and foldable bioelectronic interfaces and systems.
Through a joint research agreement with the NCVC, the MEI Lab is incorporating the CV BioDT technology into the Autonomous Closed-Loop Intervention System (ACIS), which autonomously optimizes and delivers multiple cardiac drug and device combination therapies to help physicians diagnose and treat heart attacks and acute heart failure. In 2023, NTT Research and the NCVC established a dedicated Bio Digital Twin Center in Suita, Japan.
Recent Achievements and Looking Ahead
Over the past year, the MEI Lab and its collaborators have successfully updated their mechanistic cardiovascular model, Otto, with a virtual population of healthy individuals matching the literature values of clinical data—an important achievement, according to MEI Lab Distinguished Scientist, Jon Peterson.
“The ability to simultaneously fit population data involving many different hemodynamic profiles is an accomplishment which confirms that our mechanistic model is reasonable and sets the stage for clinical insights,” said Peterson. “Using similar techniques, we have created virtual populations for two different types of heart failure, heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), and are currently working towards their implementation as well.”
Additionally, the MEI Lab is exploring how best to extend its predictive healthcare modeling efforts beyond acute heart failure to include chronic heart failure during the post-acute heart period. In the process, researchers expect to integrate the potential roles of emerging artificial intelligence beyond its current applications which rely on Bayesian Inference.
For more information about the NTT Research MEI Lab, please visit: https://mei.ntt-research.com.
About NTT Research
NTT Research opened its offices in July 2019 in Silicon Valley to conduct basic research and advance technologies as a foundational model for developing high-impact innovation across NTT Group’s global business. Currently, four groups are housed at NTT Research facilities in Sunnyvale: the Physics and Informatics (PHI) Lab, the Cryptography and Information Security (CIS) Lab, the Medical and Health Informatics (MEI) Lab, and the Physics of Artificial Intelligence (PAI) Group. The organization aims to advance science in four areas: 1) quantum information, neuroscience and photonics; 2) cryptographic and information security; 3) medical and health informatics; and 4) artificial intelligence. NTT Research is part of NTT, a global technology and business solutions provider with an annual R&D investment of thirty percent of its profits.
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