Laboratory practice is an important part of the educational process in a technical university. It helps to develop the skills of independent work of a future engineer and to consolidate theoretical knowledge. Due to a change-over to the digital economy, the introduction of complex production systems and their digital twins, the organization of laboratory work corresponding to the current state of the art gets more complicated. The article presents a biotechnological educational research complex for laboratory practice of the future specialists in the field of managing complex organizational and technical systems. Main feature of the complex is that the student performs two functions at the same time. He is both a researcher and an object of study, representing a complex system. The initial information in the process of laboratory work is the biosignals registered by mini sensors. The main purpose is to identify and evaluate the functional state of a person as a complex system. Various methods and algorithms for processing time series are used. Being an effective form of active learning, this approach motivates the student not only to acquire knowledge, but also to actively search for it. We give an example of using the complex to create a digital twin.