Technology giants ＂cross-border＂ to fight cancer

　　Cancer can be described as the sword of Damocles hanging on everyone’s head. How to cure cancer is one of the most important topics in the field of science at present, and it has also attracted the attention of many scientists, including the technological giants who have always been "trendsetters" of the times.

　　Although Microsoft, Google, IBM and other companies are famous for their software, computers or mobile phones, now they have begun to devote themselves to the war against cancer without smoke, hoping to cure cancer as soon as possible. Microsoft even said that the latest method it developed may eradicate cancer within 10 years.

　　Microsoft: Fighting Cancer with Cell Programming

　　Microsoft Research Lab is located in Cambridge University, England. It has attracted many of the best biologists, programmers and engineers in the world. These 150 professionals are working on many projects as part of the "Biocomputing" unit. Their ultimate goal is to deal with cancer.

　　According to a recent report by the British Daily Mail, scientists in this laboratory regard cancer as a big loophole in the computer system. They hope to make cells into living computers within 10 years, and then treat diseases including cancer by programming and reprogramming these cells.

　　Chris Bishop, the head of the laboratory, said in an interview with Fast Company magazine: "The fields of biology and computing seem to be irrelevant; But in fact, the complex processes that occur in cells are very similar to those that occur in computer systems. "

　　Zhou Yizhen, Microsoft’s global senior vice president in charge of the research laboratory, explained that Microsoft’s solution to cancer is based on two basic methods: First, cancer and other biological processes are information processing systems, and the laboratory of Cambridge University is currently conducting research based on this idea; Second, researchers can apply technologies such as machine learning to biological data. Therefore, "collaboration between biologists and computer scientists is crucial".

　　In 2012, researchers at Stanford University in the United States made a complete computer model of organic matter for the first time. The bacterial model of Mycoplasma genitalium was based on the data extracted from 900 scientific papers, and its performance was almost exactly the same as that of real bacteria. Since then, the field of computational biology has developed.

　　Simulating life enables scientists to carry out more complex experiments. At present, Microsoft’s programming team has developed software that can simulate the healthy behavior of a cell. Next, scientists will start to write code, so that healthy cells can be compared with sick cells to learn where the problem lies and how to solve it.

　　In the short term, the computational model developed by Microsoft scientists can help pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs. Andrew Phillips, head of the research team, said: "In the long run, it is technically feasible to propose an intelligent molecular system that can detect diseases within 5 to 10 years."

　　James Fisher, a senior researcher at Microsoft and an associate professor at Cambridge University, told the Daily Telegraph: "If we can control and manage cancer, it will probably become similar to a chronic disease, and the problem will be solved. I believe that in the next 10 years, we will be able to completely eradicate cancer. "

　　IBM: Using Artificial Intelligence to Deal with Cancer

　　Unlike Microsoft, which regards cancer cells as loopholes in computer systems, IBM’s magic weapon against cancer is its Watson artificial intelligence system.

　　According to a recent report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, IBM and the Institute of Medical Science of the University of Tokyo will jointly develop a method to treat cancer with Watson. IBM will input the latest data of papers and drug efficacy in Japan and abroad into Watson; Scientists in the institute will input genetic data extracted from the blood and tissues of Japanese cancer patients. According to the database, "Watson" will be able to propose a treatment plan suitable for patients such as drugs with less side effects and better efficacy in about 10 minutes.

　　It is reported that they used this method to judge that a 60-year-old woman has rare leukemia, and proposed a treatment plan to the researchers, which made an important contribution to the rehabilitation of this woman.

　　In fact, "Watson" has already entered the field of cancer treatment. In May last year, IBM announced that 14 cancer centers from the United States and Canada would deploy the "Watson" computer system to select the appropriate treatment plan according to patients’ tumor genes.

　　According to MIT’s Technology Review, Watson has learned 600,000 medical evidence reports and 150 patients’ case and clinical trial reports, which can help doctors design more accurate cancer treatment programs for patients.

　　Google: Using Intelligent Algorithms to Accurately Fight Cancer

　　Google has taken a different approach and developed algorithms to deal with cancer.

　　MIT Technology Review magazine reported that Google’s machine learning division "DeepMind" plans to use artificial intelligence algorithms to streamline complex cancer radiotherapy programs, hoping to shorten the treatment time, thus greatly reducing the burden on doctors and the pain of patients.

　　"Deep Thinking" will cooperate with University College London Hospital to analyze the scanned images of 700 patients who have suffered from head and neck cancer, create an algorithm to learn how doctors make decisions during radiotherapy, and finally realize automatic "segmentation" scanning to reduce the burden on doctors. "Segmentation" refers to the process that doctors need to manually draw the radiotherapy area when giving radiotherapy to cancer patients, find out the correct position of X-ray scanning to kill tumor cells and minimize the damage to surrounding healthy tissues.

　　However, the company explained that it is still up to clinicians to decide whether to reduce the radiotherapy procedure in the end, but they hope to reduce the "segmentation" process from 4 hours to about 1 hour. In addition, this algorithm can also be used for the treatment of other cancers.

　　Although the above companies have different methods, they all reach the same goal, and the ultimate goal is to remove the "cancer" in the history of human civilization — — Cancer.

　　(Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, October 10th)