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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the giving-BSOD-a-whole-new-meaning dept.

Microsoft has vowed to "solve the problem of cancer" within a decade by using ground-breaking computer science to crack the code of diseased cells so they can be reprogrammed back to a healthy state.

[...] The researchers are even working on a computer made from DNA which could live inside cells and look for faults in bodily networks, like cancer. If it spotted cancerous chances it would reboot the system and clear out the diseased cells.

Chris Bishop, laboratory director at Microsoft Research, said: "I think it's a very natural thing for Microsoft to be looking at because we have tremendous expertise in computer science and what is going on in cancer is a computational problem.

[Continues...]

Dr. Lowe, from In the Pipeline, is not convinced that Microsoft is being realistic with their "molecular computer" that will cure cancer:

We're not even near understanding what's going on in normal cells or cancerous ones, so giving people the impression that you've already simulated everything important and you're busy "debugging" it is not only arrogant, it's close to irresponsible.

[...] If you remove the hubris from the Microsoft announcement, though, which takes sandblasters and water cannons, you get to something that could be interesting. It's another machine learning approach to biology, from what I can make out, and I'm not opposed in principle to that sort of thing at all. It has to be approached with caution, though, because any application of machine learning to the biology literature has to take into account that a good percentage of that literature is crap, and that negative results (which have great value for these systems) are grievously underrepresented in it as well.

[...] So if Microsoft wants to apply machine learning to cancer biology, I'm all for it. But they should just go and try it and report back when something interesting comes out of it, rather than beginning by making a big noise in the newspapers. You want to cure cancer? Go do it; don't sit around giving interviews about how you're going to cure cancer real soon now.

Note: Bold added by submitter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/09/20/microsoft-will-solve-cancer-within-10-years-by-reprogramming-dis/
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/09/21/better-faster-more-comprehensive-manure-distribution


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:01PM (#405111)

    They will attempt to cure cancer and will instead create a more aggressive form. Then they will release a genetic update to cure the aggressive cancer, and it will become airborne and communicable instead.

    The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck, is the day they start making vacuum cleaners.

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  • (Score: 2) by goodie on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:13PM

    by goodie (1877) on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:13PM (#405138) Journal

    The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck, is the day they start making vacuum cleaners

    I don't know if it's from you but I found that quite clever, thank you :D.

    • (Score: 2) by ticho on Thursday September 22 2016, @05:16PM

      by ticho (89) on Thursday September 22 2016, @05:16PM (#405198) Homepage Journal

      I read this joke about ten years ago, so it's not new. But it's still just as funny and just as fitting as it was back then. :-)