Science News

David Patterson, a computer science professor at the U of California, Berkeley, says modern computing technology can lead a new wave of cancer research by continuing to lower the cost of genome sequencing and, importantly, lowering the cost of processing that information into usable data.

When Harvard Medical School pathologist Andrew Beck wanted to automate breast cancer diagnosis using a machine called C-Path, he could have programed software to recognize the same characteristics he looks for while examining stained slides of tumor cells in the laboratory. Instead, he let the computer choose what to look for. "Instead of focusing on the tumour cells themselves, C-Path determined that the most predictive features were found in the cells surrounding the tumour, in a region called the stroma."