Cancer Research? Elementary, My Dear Watson
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
IBM announced it will partner its Watson supercomputer with 14 health systems in order to further cancer research.
IBM’s supercomputer Watson will soon be leveraged to sort through and aggregate patient’s genetic data to plan personalized treatments for cancer patients. Modern Healthcare reports the computer will help cancer specialists at 14 hospital systems create targeted treatments for cancer-causing genetic mutations.
“Determining the right drug combination for an advanced cancer patient is alarmingly difficult, requiring a complex analysis of different sources of Big Data that integrates rapidly emerging clinical trial information with personalized gene sequencing,” said Norman Sharpless, MD, director, University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in an announcement. “We are partnering with IBM in an effort to solve this decision problem with the help of cognitive technology and to improve the decisions we make with our patients to maximize their chance for cure.”
iHealth Beat notes the hospitals will begin to use Watson later this year. “When you are dealing with cancer, it is always a race,” said Lukas Wartman, MD, assistant director of cancer genomics at The McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University in St. Louis.
“As a cancer patient myself, I know how important genomic information can be. Unfortunately, translating cancer-sequencing results into potential treatment options often takes weeks with a team of experts to study just one patient’s tumor and provide results to guide treatment decisions. Watson appears to help dramatically reduce that timeline."
“This collaboration is about giving clinicians the ability to do for a broader population what is currently only available to a small number – identify personalized, precision cancer treatments,” said Steve Harvey, vice president, IBM Watson Health. “The technology that we’re applying to this challenge brings the power of cognitive computing to bear on one of the most urgent and pressing issues of our time – the fight against cancer – in a way that has never before been possible.”
IBM also announced that it will integrate Watson with Epic EHR systems, allowing the supercomputer to use individualized data to recommend medical literature and case studies in real time through Epic's advanced decision support technology.