BMJSports Moonshot Cancer Open Letter To The IBM Corporation
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The BMJSports Moonshot Cancer Foundation Has A Open Letter To The IBM Corporation
Hybrid Media – ( Washington ) —- Watson must focus like A Laser on Breast Cancer. Looking at the 
progress IBM is making with Genomic Science its clear to our Foundation, by the way has been working with Genomics for the last ten years and Informatics for the last six years, You must win with breast cancer. If you take the base – ( Gene P53 ) And Use Artificial Intelligence. Next step would be to understand Genes can be pass from one spices to the next. Yes from humans to animals. In other words with the knowledge of Archaea is a mirco Process that causes good genes to go bad. This is the same process over billion of years genes passing from humans to animals. Scientist has known for a while eukarya and bacteria in terms of genetic, biochemical, and structural features go hand in hand. For example,
archaea possess unique flagellins and ether-linked lipids and lack murein in their cell walls Multiple archaeal genomes have been sequenced to completion, contributing to a better understanding of the unique cellular processes of archaea and their role in adaptation to extreme environments. Despite the information emerging about archaeal genomes, structure, and function, much remains unknown. Over half of archaeal genes encode unique proteins with unknown functions Difficulties in the isolation and cultivation of archaea also contribute to a relative lack of knowledge. No definitive virulence genes or factors have been described in archaea to date. Nevertheless, archaea may have the means, and they certainly have the opportunity, to cause disease.>Archaea share some
characteristics with known pathogens that may reflect the potential to cause disease.Such characteristics include ample access to a host (i.e., opportunity) and capabilities for long-term colonization and coexistence with endogenous flora in a host The detection of anaerobic archaea in the human colonic vaginal and oral microbial flora
progress IBM is making with Genomic Science its clear to our Foundation, by the way has been working with Genomics for the last ten years and Informatics for the last six years, You must win with breast cancer. If you take the base – ( Gene P53 ) And Use Artificial Intelligence. Next step would be to understand Genes can be pass from one spices to the next. Yes from humans to animals. In other words with the knowledge of Archaea is a mirco Process that causes good genes to go bad. This is the same process over billion of years genes passing from humans to animals. Scientist has known for a while eukarya and bacteria in terms of genetic, biochemical, and structural features go hand in hand. For example, archaea possess unique flagellins and ether-linked lipids and lack murein in their cell walls Multiple archaeal genomes have been sequenced to completion, contributing to a better understanding of the unique cellular processes of archaea and their role in adaptation to extreme environments. Despite the information emerging about archaeal genomes, structure, and function, much remains unknown. Over half of archaeal genes encode unique proteins with unknown functions Difficulties in the isolation and cultivation of archaea also contribute to a relative lack of knowledge. No definitive virulence genes or factors have been described in archaea to date. Nevertheless, archaea may have the means, and they certainly have the opportunity, to cause disease.>Archaea share somecharacteristics with known pathogens that may reflect the potential to cause disease.Such characteristics include ample access to a host (i.e., opportunity) and capabilities for long-term colonization and coexistence with endogenous flora in a host The detection of anaerobic archaea in the human colonic vaginal and oral microbial flora
The wrong direction is studies from MIT found when human doctors order tests on patients they factor in something that artificial intelligence is not currently aware of. The authors analyzed charts of about 60,000 ICU patients admitted to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
By looking at physician progress notes with positive or negative sentiments in patient records, they derived scores which they correlated with the number of diagnostic imaging tests that were ordered.
When other factors were controlled for, medical data alone did not drive the ordering of tests, but the sentiments of doctors could predict how many tests were ordered.
When other factors were controlled for, medical data alone did not drive the ordering of tests, but the sentiments of doctors could predict how many tests were ordered.
Pessimistic doctors ordered more testing at first, but later when the patient’s condition was viewed very negatively, they ordered fewer tests.
The study concluded that “gut feelings” or intuition had a strong impact on the number of tests ordered. 
One of the authors of the study said, “That gut feeling is probably informed by history of experience that doctors have.” He likened it to what a mother senses by looking at a child who had done something wrong.
One of the authors of the study said, “That gut feeling is probably informed by history of experience that doctors have.” He likened it to what a mother senses by looking at a child who had done something wrong.
I woke up on Saturday morning and read this WSJ article IBM has a Watson Dilemma . As always when such articles get published, this was followed by a lot of criticism on twitter, linkedin etc – and I read most of them. And today morning, I saw this article on IBM blog site from Dr John Kelly titled Watson Health : Setting the record state .
I am very hesitant about expressing my personal opinion
Especially when my employer is the one being criticized. I am not an impartial party here at all – I am an executive at IBM ( Not a very senior one by any stretch – there are a couple of levels between 
me and the CEO) , I hold IBM stock , I am not a company spokesperson, and till recently I managed a business of which Watson and Watson Health consulting services were a part of. Also, Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote about my opinions on IBM Watson after an analyst wrote an article that I thought I should weigh in, in a personal capacity.
me and the CEO) , I hold IBM stock , I am not a company spokesperson, and till recently I managed a business of which Watson and Watson Health consulting services were a part of. Also, Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote about my opinions on IBM Watson after an analyst wrote an article that I thought I should weigh in, in a personal capacity.
On the other hand, AI is a topic I have great interest and some expertise in (Again, I am not a hands-on ML developer or anything like that today – though that might potentially be one option in future given my passion).
I lost my dear Aunt Geetha to cancer a few years ago – she was a second mom to me. I was at the hospital with her when she fought the deadly disease for her last few days (I was on vacation in Trivandrum), and I spoke with several folks at the hospital whose dear ones were going through the same battle. So anything that helps fight cancer is a topic I have a deep interest in, and one where I will happily donate my time and money.
So for what little it is worth, here is my take and I am just going to address two specific issues
Is Marketing Hype the big culprit?
I am not a marketer by trade, though I appreciate high quality professional marketing. When I am in a sales role, I prefer a soft selling approach – and that might be because I am an engineer first and foremost. So, I totally get it when IBM Marketing gets accused of going overboard by someone on social media. I have also been in this industry long enough to know that without massive
awareness created by marketing, no young technology gets the air cover it needs to mature. I personally know of no client who has made an enterprise purchase only because they saw awesome vendor marketing. Marketing opens doors no doubt – but clients subject their purchasing decisions to an array or dimensions ( proof of concepts, risk management, analyst reports, references etc) before someone signs a check.
awareness created by marketing, no young technology gets the air cover it needs to mature. I personally know of no client who has made an enterprise purchase only because they saw awesome vendor marketing. Marketing opens doors no doubt – but clients subject their purchasing decisions to an array or dimensions ( proof of concepts, risk management, analyst reports, references etc) before someone signs a check.
What I readily agree is that marketing does contribute to setting big expectations for new technologies. And big expectations are good – as long as everyone gets the nuances that go with it. When it comes to finding good solutions for deadly diseases cancer, I doubt it helps to not have bold goals. I always encourage folks to ask good questions – and proceed with eyes open.
Is it bad that Watson agrees with doctors most of the time?
To state the obvious, it would be terrible if Watson and doctors disagreed all the time. But is it bad if they agreed most of the time? The WSJ article implies that since human doctors agree with Watson most of the time, they stop using it or at least limit its use.
There are commercial use cases that follow the same pattern as cancer diagnostics. For example, Watson can ingest training manuals of several machines and can have a Q&A with a mechanic or a customer who is faced with a live problem. An experienced mechanic usually agrees with Watson most of the time, and probably does not see much value. But think about the less experienced mechanic, or a customer who is not technical. The solution is of high value to them. The ideal situation is that the experienced mechanic continues to train Watson (via agreeing and correcting when wrong) and Watson helps several lesser experienced mechanics and customers from what it has learned. That is the incentive to have the experienced mechanic continue to use Watson.
Sitting outside the room where my Aunt was struggling with her fight, one thing was abundantly clear to me. In USA, we have several oncologists and specialist hospitals that are the envy of the world. That is not universally true. Even in the hospital I was at with my aunt in India, there were plenty of oncologists – but nowhere close the number that is needed to cover the sheer number of patients. They have very little time to keep up with the latest in cancer care – or to even spend enough time with one of their patients. They deal with patients who flock there (and several of them thankfully don’t have cancer and was sent there because of poor diagnosis where they initially went to ), and even if that process can be streamlined – they can save more lives.
Now think of all the hospitals in a country with a billion people – and several of the people not diagnosed or treated just because of poor access to specialists!
I also vividly remember the line in front of the radiologist’s office there in India – one very tired lady trying her best to read images and make notes while highly stressed out patients and their relatives started shouting around her. I felt terrible for the doctor and the people around her. With advances in computer vision, this scenario can be improved exponentially.
Is it bad that Watson cannot figure out great solutions for rare cases?
The MIT investigators are thinking about ways to teach a computer to have gut feelings, but at this point, artificial intelligence has not been programmed to employ this wisdom.
Artificial intelligence took another hit from the folks at Stat News who did an in-depth report on IBM’s Watson for Oncology. It seems Watson was trained with hypothetical cases by physicians and others at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York instead of using “big data” from the large number of cancer patients at that institution.
An oncologist who formerly worked for IBM and helped run the project outlined its problems in presentations at the company. He said recommendations for treatment were based on the opinions of a few oncologists—not guidelines or evidence. In one instance, Watson recommended treating a mock patient with lung cancer and bleeding with a drug which carries a black box warning saying its use can cause massive hemorrhage. No real patients were treated with the drug.
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