New Watson-powered service aimed at advancing precision cancer treatments

IBM announced Monday that it's partnering with Quest Diagnostics to advance precision medicine in the treatment of cancer across the US. With the launch of a new service called IBM Watson Genomics from Quest Diagnostics, the two companies are combining Watson's cognitive computing power with Quest's expertise in tumor analysis. The service is also supported by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), which will give Watson access to OncoKB, its database of clinical evidence. The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard are also providing additional genome sequencing capabilities. The new service uses laboratory sequencing and analysis of a tumor's genomic makeup to identify mutations that can be associated with targeted therapies and clinical trials.