An international team of researchers have used AI to map signals across the entire genome that herald the beginnings of cancer. The researchers, who say that their algorithm is similar to that used by Netflix, have identified 21 common faults that occur in human DNA when cancer begins to grow. "Cancer is a complex disease, but we've demonstrated that there are remarkable similarities in the changes to chromosomes that happen when it starts and how it grows," says Dr Ludmil Alexandrov, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, US, and co-lead author on a paper describing the research, published in Nature. "Just as Netflix can predict which shows you'll choose to binge watch next, we believe that we will be able to predict how your cancer is likely to behave, based on the changes its genome has previously experienced." The researchers used their algorithm to examine genomic data from 9,873 patients, who had 33 different types of cancer.