Sometimes subjects hit home closer than normal for a journalist and this is one of them. It has been known for a while that the PlayStation 3 console is being used to help in cancer research through its Folding@Home feature. Well, now it has been taken a step further as the cell chip is being used to monitor tumor growths.
Doctors feel that the cell chip may start helping monitor the growth of tumors through computer tomography. CT Scans in the field of medicine are capable of overwhelming regular computers nowadays with all of the images it can produce. However, due to the power of the cell, some believe that it can help improve the rate at which CT Scan results can be read. This will obviously help in diagnosing a patient earlier, as well as giving them more time to take preventative measures and even an earlier opportunity to cure the cancer.
"We are at a point with standards in technology and new genomic based analytic techniques where we can achieve more in the next 10 years than we’ve achieved in the last 100,” said Mayo Clinic, President and CEO Denis Cortese.
The team of doctors behind this program has been very careful in letting people know that this is still in the developmental stages. They have partnered with IBM in order to create a Medical Imaging Informatics Innovation Center, which will focus on better imaging and health screening.
If this can prove to be successful, then we can only imagine what could come of it in the future.
From a writer who personally went through cancer last year, I’d like to thank all of you here at PSU.com who have taken part in the Folding@Home experience and hope you guys continue to do so.