A new collaboration between Boston Children's Hospital and IBM Watson will allow clinicians to use Watson's cognitive platform for clinical decision support in the diagnosis and treatment of rare pediatric diseases.
Initially, the partnership will focus on kidney disease. Watson will analyze large volumes of scientific literature and clinical databases on the Watson Health Cloud to uncover insights to help clinicians identify treatment options.
Clinicians at Boston Children's will help further train Watson in nephrology by inputting related literature into the supercomputer, as well as genomic sequencing data from patients. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a cognitive system that helps clinicians interpret a genome sequencing data and use existing literature to identify diagnoses and treatments.
"Coping with an undiagnosed illness is a tremendous challenge for many of the children and families we see," said Christopher Walsh, MD, PhD, director of the Division of Genetics and Genomics at Boston Children's. "Watson can help us ensure we've left no stone unturned in our search to diagnose and cure these rare diseases so we can uncover all relevant insights from the patient's clinical history, DNA data, supporting evidence and population health."
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