IBM’s Watson supercomputer to help fight brain cancer

Although medical science has travelled a great milestone, yet it is not able to come up with a final cure to cancer. Great scientists, doctors, medical researchers, etc…. are striving hard to find the final solution to curb and cure cancer from the roots. But something terrific is being planned for curing cancer and that is Watson – the supercomputer. The New York Genome Center and IBM have worked as a team and have launched a supercomputer named as Watson for fighting against cancer. Currently, IBM has developed a prototype of Watson which will run on cloud computing system. This prototype is created and developed in order to conduct genomic research for reading and interpreting genetic data that will facilitate in identifying a right treatment for curing common brain cancers.

Currently, this IBM’s Watson supercomputer prototype will be used initially for 25 patients who are suffering from glioblastoma multiforme. This is a malignant and aggressive brain cancer which will be fatal in the initial stages. However, the process will be indeed long as it will initially study the genomes of the patients and then identify the best methods for treatment. The sole benefit of Watson is that it will take a very less amount of time for relating the genetic data of patient with related literature.

The research director at IBM, Dr. John Kelly said, “As genomic research progresses and information becomes more available, we aim to make the process of analysis much more practical and accessible through cloud-based, cognitive innovations like Watson.” He also informed BBC news, “It's like big data on steroids. Watson can do in seconds what would take people years. And we can get it down to a really personal level. This is the proverbial needle in the haystack and the haystack is enormous.”

The president and scientific director Dr. Robert Darnell at New York Genome Center informed that in order to analyze the patient’s brain, it is very essential to sequence 800 billion DNA base pairs. In order to detect the right treatment for patients, the doctors require the medical literature, clinical data, relevant guides and study findings of the patient. He informed, “The real challenge has been making sense of massive quantities of genetic data and translating research findings into better treatments and outcomes for patients.”

Watson assists the doctors in identifying the right treatment for the patients. After the relevant data is achieved, the doctors save each and every detail in the supercomputer, Watson. Watson functions through artificial intelligence and can identify the proteins that can aid in coming up with the right treatment for all. Dr. John Kelly said, “With this knowledge, doctors will be able to attack cancer and other devastating diseases with treatments that are tailored to the patient’s and disease’s own DNA profiles. This is a major transformation that can help improve the lives of millions of patients around the world.”

The success of prototype will decide the development and launch of the final product, Watson.