IBM supercomputer could hold key to brain cancer
pharmafile | March 21, 2014 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | avastin, brain cancer, ibm, nygc, supercomputer
The New York Genome Center and IBM Watson have joined forces to accelerate a new era of genomic medicine, initially focussing on brain cancer.
IBM and NYGC will test a unique Watson prototype supercomputer designed specifically for genomic research as a tool to help oncologists deliver more personalised care to cancer patients.
The first target is glioblastoma, an aggressive and malignant brain cancer that kills more than 13,000 people in the US each year.
In a joint statement the firms say that despite ground-breaking discoveries into the genetic drivers of cancers like glioblastoma, few patients benefit from personalised treatment that is tailored to their individual cancer mutations.
This is because doctors lack the tools and time required to bring DNA-based treatment options to their patients and to do so, they must correlate data from genome sequencing to reams of medical journals, new studies and clinical records.
This is where the joint NYGC-IBM initiative aims to speed up this complex process, identifying patterns in genome sequencing and medical data to unlock insights that may help clinicians bring the promise of genomic medicine to their patients.
“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,” says Dr John Kelly, senior VP and director of IBM Research.
“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. If successful, this will be a major transformation that will help improve the lives of millions of patients around the world.”
Learning computer
The companies hope that the combination of NYGC’s genomic and clinical expertise coupled with the power of IBM’s Watson system will enable further development of the supercomputer.
The new cloud-based Watson system will be designed to analyse genetic data along with comprehensive biomedical literature and drug databases.
Watson can continually ‘learn’ as it encounters new patient scenarios, and as more information becomes available through new medical research, journal articles and clinical studies.
The goal of the collaboration is to increase the number of patients who have access to care options tailored to their disease’s DNA.
Robert Darnell, chief executive and president of the New York Genome Center, says: “Since the human genome was first mapped more than a decade ago, we’ve made tremendous progress in understanding the genetic drivers of disease. The real challenge before us is how to make sense of massive quantities of genetic data and translate that information into better treatments for patients.
“Applying the cognitive computing power of Watson is going to revolutionise genomics and accelerate the opportunity to improve outcomes for patients with deadly diseases by providing personalised treatment.”
Few options for glioblastoma
There is already a personalised treatment on the market for glioblastoma, namely Roche’s Avastin (bevacizumab) – the world’s biggest-selling oncology product with licences for a number of cancers.
But the drug has not fared well in treating this disorder, and some markets have refused to given Avastin a licence for this disease given questions over its efficacy.
The glioblastoma market is an attractive area for pharma, but is also with problems: in 2013 Merck’s oncology programme suffered a setback as a Phase III trial of its investigational integrin inhibitor cilengitide failed in patients with newly-diagnosed glioblastoma.
Ben Adams
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