|
AUSTIN – Cloud-based research technology launched by Delllast year for the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen)is gearing up for what's billed as the world"s firstprecision medicine clinical trial for pediatric cancer. James Coffin, vice president and general manager, Dell Healthcareand Life Sciences, says the eight-teraflop supercomputer, billed asthe "kids cloud," will drastically reduce the timerequired to identify personalized treatments for childrenparticipating in the trial program – kids who have no time tospare. In turn, that acceleration can help open the trials up toparticipation from more children. The Human Genome Project "took $3 billion and 10 years"to sequence the first genome, he points out. "A year ago, ittook about nine months and cost about $400,000 or $500,000 to do afull genome." And recently, says Coffin, "we just ran a test for a fullgenome for a patient, and got all the the results and made aclinical decision for the patient to the tumor board in less thanfive days." Dell has "done a lot of work to retune the codes and make themrun really fast on this platform," he says. "Just threemonths ago, the analysis of 25 million bases – there'susually about 500 or 600 million bases you have to do to kind of dothis whole genome sequence – and 25 million bases took about48 hours." Now, that time is down to six hours. [See also: Dell launches cloud technology platform, targeting treatment forpediatric cancer .] "There's an inflection point in genomic science right now,where we have these new, next generation sequencers that are comingout over the last six months from companies like Illumina and LifeTechnologies, and then we have very very fact computing, and newprocessors coming out from Intel," says Coffin. "I've been talking about personalized medicine for 13, 14years, since before the human genome project happened, saying thatthis is the future of medicine," he adds. "It's herenow." Oncologists from the Neuroblastoma and MedulloblastomaTranslational Research Consortium (NMTRC) and biomedicalresearchers from TGen will use Dell's computing and collaborationcloud to seek out and ID treatments for pediatric cancer patientsbased on the specific genetic vulnerabilities of each specifictumor. First announced in November 2011, Dell"s team has completedthe high performance computing cluster that will serve as thecloud"s computational foundation and basis for a privatecloud, officials say. When equipped with Dell"s PowerEdgeM420 server technology, TGen can analyze comprehensively apatient"s tumor RNA profile seven times faster than waspreviously possible. Time, of course, is a precious commodity forkids with cancer. "With this particular population of children, with pediatricneuroblastoma, you've essentially got one shot," says Coffin. With the dedicated computing cluster in place, Dell will begin toconnect the biomedical researchers sequencing and analyzing patienttumors at TGen in Arizona with oncologists providing treatment topatients participating in the trial at 11 medical centers,officials note, adding that the new cloud will eliminate the needto express mail hard drives containing tumor and diagnostic imagesand genomic sequencing data between locations. [See also: Slideshow: Advances in personalized medicine .] With just one new treatment for pediatric cancer approved by the FDA since the 1980s – compared with 50 treatments approved foradult cancer in the same period – pediatric oncologists haveoften been forced to rely on adult-sized treatments, leading tosome toxic side effects that are often as harmful to children asthe cancer itself. More targeted treatments can aim right for thespecific vulnerabilities of each child"s tumor, leavinghealthy cells untouched. "We're really making progress and figuring out what thecocktail is for them very quickly," says Coffin. "We'reable to go full genome sequence on them and really get all theinformation we think we need. It's a very different game." In the coming years, the hope it that this approach can not only be"a model for all cancer" but "a way to treat alldisease," says Coffin. "Understanding the biological andgenomic pathways of these things is the way you need to treateverything going forward." He adds that "this is one of the reasons I'm so passionateabout healthcare IT. This is the kind of thing health IT can do tochange the world. I don't think health IT gets enough credit forwhat it does. This is a perfect example: you can't do this withouthealth IT.". The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Personalised Photo Album , China Cardboard Counter Display Box, and more. For more , please visit Spiral Bound Book Printing today!
Related Articles -
Personalised Photo Album, China Cardboard Counter Display Box,
|
