IBM is teaming up with a new organization — the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund — to tackle a disease: type 1 diabetes.
New York City-based JDRF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to type 1 diabetes (T1D) research and advocacy.
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Through their collaboration, IBM will apply machine learning techniques to vast amounts of T1D research data. The ultimate goal? Learning more about what causes T1D in children, as well as how it could be delayed or prevented.
More specifically, IBM will analyze at least three separate data sets and compare them to previously collected data from global research projects. Scientists will examine genetic, autoantibody, and familial variables to find a group of characteristics common to all the data sets.
JDRF will then use these findings to determine top risk factors for T1D.
Jessica Dunne, director and program lead for JDRF’s Prevention Program, noted that pinpointing risk factors is only the beginning.
“Through previous staging work, we have been able to identify and stage individuals at risk for T1D,” she said via email. “However, more precise methods to identify progression patterns, as well as pathways responsible for risk, are still needed. With IBM’s technology and analysis, we are opening up the possibility of developing personalized approaches for prevention and ultimately, curing T1D.”
Likewise, IBM believes in the power of this collaboration.
“The Healthcare & Life Sciences team at IBM Research is focused on tackling some of the greatest health challenges we face today,” Kenney Ng, manager of health analytics research at IBM, said via email. “With nearly 40,000 new cases diagnosed annually, and no current cure, type 1 diabetes is a major challenge for the doctors, clinicians and patients who interact with it every day.”
Ng added that IBM has done previous work in the field of diabetes, including researching diabetic retinopathy and type II diabetes.
Currently, the pilot project between IBM and JDRF is set to last for one year, Dunne said, with the results becoming available at the end of 2018. But if all goes well, the two hope to form a lasting partnership.
Looking ahead, the organizations believe the next stage of the collaboration may include analyzing more complex information, like microbiome and genomics or transcriptomics data, Dunne added.
But most significantly, they hope to consistently move forward toward the goal of eradicating the disease. “The knowledge gained through the analysis could also be applied to help JDRF in its pursuit of a cure for people with T1D,” she said.
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