Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is teaming up with AWS to accelerate its oncology research with AI, the health system announced Monday at the ViVE conference in Nashville.
By using AI to analyze vast amounts of data, Memorial Sloan Kettering will be able to unlock insights that can enable better cancer treatments and more individualized care, said Anaeze Offodile, chief strategy officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
For instance, AI can examine patient data to predict the likelihood of developing certain diseases and the associated trajectory of disease burden, which allows for early interventions and preventive measures, he pointed out. AI can also be leveraged to identify the most effective treatment or clinical trial options for specific patients, considering factors such as genetic mutations and patient treatment preferences, Offodile added.
AI models can generate diagnostic insights as well, he noted. For example, AI can analyze medical images like X-rays and MRIs to identify subtle patterns and anomalies that the human eye might miss.
Offodile also highlighted that the medical research community has “great optimism” about AI’s ability to boost the speed and precision of drug discovery.
AI analysis can reveal potential drug candidates and the appropriate patient populations to enroll in clinical trials, as well as reliably predict the tolerability, efficacy and safety of novel treatments, Offodile explained.
He noted that Memorial Sloan Kettering has a wide range of drug discovery focus areas, spanning various tumor types and treatment modalities.
“We are leaders in cell therapy as well as antibody-based therapies but are also actively working across a portfolio of small molecule programs. In general, we will seek to target cancers that are difficult to treat, and where existing therapy is not meeting the needs of our patients,” Offodile declared.
He also said that deploying AWS’ tech will allow Memorial Sloan Kettering to scale the efforts at its startup accelerator, which is called Innovation Hub or iHub for short.
“AWS has a large portfolio of resources — capital, cloud storage and expertise — that can be deployed to help startups. For iHub, they will provide both resources and education to expand our iHub ecosystem,” Offodile remarked.
AWS will provide iHub with cloud credits, educational materials and investments to fund pilots, he said.
Memorial Sloan Kettering chose AWS as a partner because the company has a history of AI and cloud innovation, as well as a record of successful partnerships with academic centers, Offodile stated.
“Beyond their compelling track record, we have been working with the AWS team on a day-to-day basis over the past few months. Over the course of this, they have demonstrated a strong understanding of our complex needs, and a command of the latest technology. In addition, their AI tools are platform-agnostic, allowing us to access [large language models] from multiple technology firms and select the best one for us,” he explained.
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