IBM fights cancer

IBM announced today that it is partnering with three leading cancer research organizations. This collaboration with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Molecular Profiling Institute, and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine Research Center aims to accelerate cancer research, diagnosis and treatment.

"This is an excellent multi-sector model that can drive integration of molecular medicine into areas where it's truly needed, including cancer detection, treatment, and ultimately prevention," said Dr. Anna D. Barker, Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute. "The convergence of advanced technologies and post-genomics science will change cancer medicine in ways we cannot yet envision. Capturing and managing the astounding amounts of information generated from new technologies, and integrating the entire process from bench to the bedside, can help usher in the era of molecular oncology — and provide a catalyst to transform all healthcare."

The integration of data across multiple sources and the generation of personalized feedback are two of the technology areas where IBM is lending its expertise. In collaboration with the following three research organizations, IBM can make a true difference in the way that cancer is studied, treated, understood, and hopefully, one day cured.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering

Funded by a $3 million grant of technology and services from IBM, MSKCC will be the first cancer center with a comprehensive system integrating its hospital data with text mining and related analytical capabilities to spur improvements in treatment. This unified information management environment includes the identification of significant research projects from which knowledge is drawn and applied directly to the patient level, accelerating the impact of research work.

In addition, pathologists at MSKCC are working closely with IBM researchers to create a searchable database for pathology reports. In this project, researchers are working to create a system where information will automatically be extracted into standard formats from millions of pathology reports — past and present — and mapped to a database that will help speed cancer research.

Molecular Profiling Institute

The technology being developed by IBM and MPI will provide clinicians with diagnostic intelligence and analysis to assist them in making molecular distinctions when diagnosing and treating cancer patients. This is a first step to making personalized diagnosis based on phenotype and genomic data possible and will send physicians and clinicians a tailored patient report based on the patient's complete molecular profile.

Sainte-Justine Research Center

IBM's work with Sainte-Justine's, a university teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Montreal, will provide their researchers with real-time access to data, using an IBM technology solution. Clinical data that was once manually extracted from the hospital's patient file will now be electronically transmitted and merged with genomic data to create a Medical Information Repository. This will reduce a query process from days to minutes and allow researchers to develop personalized therapies for various patients and keep longitudinal records.

The work with Sainte-Justine's builds on IBM's work with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. St. Jude operates an IBM supercomputer system that can perform more than 600 billion operations per second and allows St. Jude to accelerate medical research to find preventions, cures and new treatment options for catastrophic diseases in children, such as cancers, acquired and inherited immunodeficiencies and genetic disorders.

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