14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists with the New York Genome Center will collaborate with IBM in a new study on the origins and development patterns of brain cancer. A group of 20 patients suffering from a highly-aggressive form of brain cancer will have their genomes analyzed by Watson, an artificial intelligence machine best known for winning the TV game show Jeopardy.
The extreme natural language processing skills and machine learning abilities of this amazing AI will attempt to discover connections inside the human genome that oncologists and researchers may have missed over the years. Watson is an extremely capable machine, able of providing great benefits for such point-of-care applications.
The AI has been learning more about the human brain at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Over the past two years, it has managed to store a vast amount of data about brain cancer and the human genome. It is now perfectly able to browse medical literature for relevant suggestions when it comes to preventing and treating brain cancer.
IBM experts believe that Watson is perfectly suited to provide scientists with a deeper level of analysis into the genetic similarities found in cancer, said IBM Research representative Raminderpal Singh, following a press conference held on March 19 in New York.
When it comes to this group of 20 patients, Watson will not only analyze medical literature for any potentially useful bit of information, but it will also look at genetic differences between cancerous and healthy cells in each individual. This will enable the AI to figure out precisely what mutations affected which gene before the disease developed, IEEE Spectrum reports
“As genome sequencing becomes more commonplace – and it will – we'll need a way to go from mutation information to clinically actionable information,” Singh said yesterday. The patients in the new study are located in nine hospitals and institutions across the United States. All participants suffer from glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of cancer.
The president of the New York Genome Center, Robert Darnell, says that glioblastoma leaves patients with a life expectancy of just 12 to 14 months following diagnostic. “We need time to think about it – and time is not your friend when it comes to glioblastoma,” the official explains.
Darnell adds that Watson's ability to sequence DNA from these patients could potentially discover at least some of the thousands of mutations believed to contribute to this form of cancer. Additionally, the study is also expected to find individual variations within gene expression patterns in every one of the 20 test subjects. This will also contribute to creating personalized treatments for glioblastoma patients.