New York Genome Center and IBM Partner Up

The New York Genome Center (NYGC) and International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) announced that they are partnering up in the interest of advancing genomic medicine practices.

In a unique partnership, the international computer and electronics company IBM will be working with NYGC, an organization dedicated to elevating awareness and application of groundbreaking discoveries in human genetics. IBM has recently designed a cloud base database system dedicated to recording and analyzing human genetic information along with biomedical cues and drug databases. This system, called the Watson cognitive system, is still just a prototype, but IBM representatives say that they hope to make it a tool that can aid doctors in determining diagnoses and treatments for cancer patients across the U.S.

According to a public announcement made by IBM on Wednesday, NYGC and its associated institutions will be evaluating the IBM Watson cognitive system's ability to develop more personalized and effective care for cancer patients. It is the hoe that the Watson system's analysis of individual genetic drivers of cancer can help medical practitioners determine treatments specific to each cancer patient's unique needs.

Genetic sequencing, which has been a hot topic among researcher and medical experts for years, has primarily been a tool for the research lab. Despite groundbreaking research that has identified numerous genetic drivers behind serious ailments, including cancer, a shortage of technological resources has kept the benefits of these breakthroughs almost entirely out of the hospital room.

According to IBM and NYGC, application of the Watson technology, once refine, should hopefully change all that, increasing the accuracy of diagnoses and expanding care options to individualized treatments tailored to clues in a patient's DNA.

Business ventures like Human Longevity Inc. and Google/Roche's Calico are also looking to make human genome sequencing into a widely used medical tool.

However, experts still have their reservations about the success of any of these companies, saying that human genome sequencing, although useful, is still far too dependent on a physician's own interpretation for practical use in the hospital room.

The IBM press release was published on March 19.