About

The Astronaut Digital Twin is a joint venture between two companies with a long history at the frontier of molecular analytics, pattern analysis, pattern recognition, systems engineering, computational modeling, and countermeasure development: Sovaris Aerospace and Embody Biosciences. 

Sovaris Aerospace is widely regarded as one of the leaders in the field of precision medicine in human spaceflight and high performance operations on Earth. At the research level, this work utilizes genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and microbiomics (multiomics) to better understand the human response to space and extreme operations on Earth. At the clinical and performance level, Sovaris further works to reduce complexity in order to develop solutions (countermeasures) that are tailored to the individual, as well as to crews, teams, and units.  Sovaris’ work covers a spectrum from NASA, the NFL, the NBA, US Olympic teams, Nike, SpaceX, Axiom Space, Corvette Racing, NASCAR, US Special Forces, SWAT, the Naval Submarine Medical Research Lab, Naval aviators and fighter pilots, the Mayo Clinic, Weill Cornell Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine, and others. At the mission level, Sovaris has been instrumental in development of the multiomics field applied to human spaceflight, which includes the comprehensive multiomics analysis in the following missions: the NASA Twins Study of One Year in Space (341 days in space), SpaceX Inspiration4 (3-days in space), Axiom-2 (12 days in space), Axiom-3 (21 days in space), Polaris Dawn (5 days in space with a civilian spacewalk, 2024), Italian Space Agency missions (2025/26), and other missions in development.

Sovaris Aerospace was born out of its founder’s early work at NASA Ames Research Center, which, in part, included the integration of molecular, physiologic, and behavioral data from the NASA 20G human centrifuge and NASA’s longest duration human studies of continuous centrifugation (22 hours). This also included work within NASA’s Human Systems Integration Division, the Psychophysiology Research Laboratory, the Human Information Processing Research Branch, and the Office of the Chief Medical Officer. Sovaris has advanced the field of using functionally characterized molecular networks (FCN), as a basis for the development of clinical decision support, astronaut/athlete training, mission readiness, and biodigital twins. Sovaris also works to integrate such molecular data with a wide range of sensor (e.g., EEG, autonomic, sleep, and others), behavioral, and performance data in order to best understand the response in extreme conditions and more rapidly prototype countermeasures. Sovaris’ foundational work in development of a cognitive digital twin for human applications on Earth precedes its work on the Astronaut Digital Twin. Sovaris Aerospace is based in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

EmbodyBio is a pioneer in biodigital twins for precision health, precision medicine, and biopharmaceutical research.  EmbodyBio’s rich heritage in bio simulation began with the founding team’s first company, Entelos.  In the early 90’s, Entelos developed the first large-scale pathophysiology models across numerous disease areas for biopharmaceutical R&D, shaping the discipline of what is now called Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP).  Today, Entelos-trained researchers lead QSP modeling groups within major biopharma organizations including Genentech, Pfizer, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Daiichi-Sankyo and the NIH.  In 2014, EmbodyBio was founded to develop new technology for two groundbreaking capabilities beyond QSP:  scalable modeling of individuals for healthcare applications (what we now call biodigital twins), and leveraging twins to both utilize and interpret multiomic data.  Both capabilities are pivotal to Lee Hood’s vision of P4 Medicine with whom EmbodyBio has collaborated since 2007.  The dialog with the Hood-Price Lab at the Institute for Systems Biology centered on EmbodyBio’s Brain Health and Neurodegeneration (BHN) platform, and is highlighted in Lee Hood & Nathan Price’s recent book The Age of Scientific Wellness. 

Today, EmbodyBio’s biodigital twin technology platform powers numerous companies and research efforts including the Cardiovascular Biodigital Twin at the Medical and Health Informatics Laboratory of NTT Research, the BHN platform now at Fulcrum Neuroscience, and EmbodyBio’s own development efforts in digital twins for diabetes and cardiometabolic disease prevention.  The diabetes research EmbodyBio is pursuing with Lee Hood’s new initiative, Phenome Health, has many parallels with the HRP-C :  utilizing longitudinal deep multiomic and functional phenotyping on a focused population to generate insights that enable preventive precision health applications.  Sovaris Aerospace and EmbodyBio are ideal partners to bring the capabilities of the Astronaut Digital Twin platform to the spaceflight community.  EmbodyBio is based in Marin County, California, USA.