The team at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Medicine is going to get unique support in developing a vaccine to fight cancer. One of Britain’s most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers “Dawn” will now be available for their use. Under a special government scheme, researchers have been allowed to use this supercomputer for up to 10,000 hours.
Dr. Leonard Lee, who is leading the project, says the initiative may sound like science fiction, but it is a reality. “It’s 2025, this technology exists now and we’re going to try it.” Dr. Lee explains that the biggest challenge of cancer is its complexity. Every patient’s cancer develops differently and this makes treatment difficult. In such a situation, it is almost impossible for humans to understand large data sets of thousands of patients and recognize the patterns hidden in them.This is where the Dawn supercomputer will help researchers. Its power will allow scientists to process millions of data points very quickly. Dr. Lee says, “This will give us the advantage of both speed and scale.We will be able to understand cancer in greater depth and detail than ever before.”
The goal of this research is not just to understand cancer, but to design new vaccines to prevent it. Dr. Lee believes that this technique will allow the creation of vaccines that were “not possible” before. In addition, the researchers will add findings from this work to the Oxford Neoantigen Atlas, an open-access online platform that will serve as a repository of knowledge for scientists working on cancer vaccines across the UK.
With the help of AI, medical research brings new hope in the fight against complex diseases like cancer. The usage of supercomputers is an efficient way as they will complete years of work in months. This initiative will expand cancer vaccine research and benefit the scientific community around the world.
