Japan is here too! How much can artificial intelligence play a role in conquering cancer?
Release date: 2016-12-01
If artificial intelligence can help people overcome cancer, it will be a major advance in the history of science.
On November 29, Kyodo News released that the National Cancer Research Center of Japan will work with the Industrial Technology Research Institute to develop a system that uses artificial intelligence to provide the most appropriate treatment for every cancer patient.
This is the third news of the use of AI in the treatment of cancer in the past month.
Previously, computer graphics chip maker Nvidia, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Energy, plans to develop an artificial intelligence framework platform called the Cancer Distributed Learning Environment to accelerate cancer research. IBM's "Watson" artificial intelligence teamed up with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University's Broad Institute to launch the Cancer Genome Project.
So how does AI help people overcome cancer? Can you help people overcome cancer?
To answer the above questions, we must first understand the difficulty of cancer. Simply put, cancer is caused by a series of DNA mutations, and mutations also give cancer the ability to escape growth inhibition, independent growth and proliferation signals, immortality, invasion and metastasis, angiogenesis, etc., so it is difficult to overcome.
Knowing the answer to "Shuai Shimin" is a very vivid explanation of the process of cancer:
Assuming that cancer cells are soldiers, the normal cells in our bodies are unarmed civilians. The process of cancer is a process in which civilians are armed themselves and an uprising or riot occurs. The role of the mutation is to give these civilian weapons and equipment.
So how powerful can these equipments be? We know that normal cells have the same life and death as ours. Moreover, human beings have evolved to the present, and there is also a system of censorship inside and outside the cell that is more powerful than the SARFT. It is also difficult for cells to rebel.
For example, in general, in the process of cell proliferation, if our genetic material (DNA) accidentally makes a mistake that is difficult to repair during the process of replication (the error may induce mutation), in order to prevent this cell from future quail There is a mechanism in the cell that kills this cell ( apoptosis ).
The cell that manages this power is called TP53. This guy is also one of the star proteins in cancer research. Because TP53 can reduce the proliferation of bad cells, that is, it can inhibit the production of cancer, we call TP53, a gene that inhibits cancer production, a tumor suppressor gene.
We can imagine that normal cells want to rebel, and having such a protein is troublesome. Therefore, many cancer cells have mutations in TP53 (such as at least a quarter of breast cancer patients), which is to abandon this inconvenient guy. This example tells us that one of the most important equipments that mutations can give to cells is to escape growth inhibition.
In addition to being able to protect cells from growth inhibition, mutations can also give cells many other abilities. For example, the proliferation of normal cells is strictly regulated. This is a bit like the “family planning†policy of our country. It is not that you want to have a few births. If you want to have more life, you need something like “birth certificateâ€.
The same is true for cells, and it is necessary to have a signal to multiply. Mutations allow cells to multiply in the absence or only forged "quasi-certificates." This is another heavy weapon that mutations give to cells – independent of growth and proliferation signals.
In addition, the mutation can also give the cancer army the ability to immortality, invasion and metastasis, angiogenesis, etc., and will not repeat them here. In summary, mutations give giant cells a huge survival advantage and eventually develop into cancer.
At present, the methods of using artificial intelligence by various medical institutions and companies are not the same, and the purpose to be achieved is different.
The medical system that Japan wants to develop, wants to build a database based on the patient's genome (all genetic information) accumulated by the cancer center , as well as a large amount of information such as blood tests and image diagnosis, and compares it with the research results of medical papers, etc. Used in diagnosis and treatment.
It can be seen from this model that the system will be severely limited by research results such as medical papers, and can only be used to quickly and correctly diagnose cancer, and based on the existing research results to give treatment options, there is still a lot of cancer. Great distance.
IBM and MIT and Harvard University's Cancer Genome Project focus on thousands of drug-resistant tumors and use Watson's powerful computing and machine learning capabilities to help understand how cancer is resistant to drugs.
It can also be seen that their focus is on identifying the drug resistance of cancer through artificial intelligence, which makes the drug more effective. It will be a very big breakthrough for the treatment of cancer, but it is really difficult to overcome it fundamentally.
Nvidia's "Cancer Distributed Learning Environment" is aimed at solving the three major problems of cancer treatment by developing and improving the artificial intelligence framework:
Helps predict which treatments will work for patients by elevating scientists' understanding of gene signatures in DNA and RNA; speeding up the process of protein interactions (the process plays an important role in the formation of early cancer); Organize data for millions of cancer patients to build a comprehensive database for monitoring cancer metastasis and recurrence.
Nvidia's system is also based on current medical research on cancer to promote personalized treatment. Helping to overcome cancer is only to speed up the research progress of scientists.
From the specific practices of applying AI to cancer treatment, the role of artificial intelligence in helping people overcome cancer is largely limited by medical research on cancer. In other words, the role of artificial intelligence is limited to speeding up the fight against cancer. The real progress is based on biology and medicine – from the start of genes and cells.
Surprisingly, Microsoft previously set up a biological computing department in Cambridge, England, and brought together 150 of the world's top biologists, programmers, and engineers to use artificial intelligence as a weapon to attack cancer.
Their basic idea is to use the pioneering computer science technology to crack the diseased cell code and reprogram the diseased cells to return them to health.
Just like programming can solve the computer virus problem, Microsoft believes that by programming the human body system can eliminate cancer. Microsoft has indicated that it will overcome cancer problems in the next 10 years, and humanity will enter a true "cancer-free era."
Obviously, this is no longer a combination of pure artificial intelligence and medicine, but also biology. If Microsoft's technology can be achieved, it is natural to overcome cancer.
However, there is still a big difficulty in promoting the use of artificial intelligence in cancer treatment - data.
To understand simply, artificial intelligence is a set of functions with uncertain parameters. The determination of parameters requires massive data to complete. In the above-mentioned projects, how much data can be used to support the exact parameters will be a very big test. The specific needs are still not verified, but it is certain that only tens of thousands of cases are not enough.
Source: 36æ°ª
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