Services public cloud system. Thanks to cloud computing and other…

Services public cloud system. Thanks to cloud computing and other technical advances, sequencing of a human genome can now be done in about 40 hours at a cost of under $5000.

Researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio invented Churchill, a software application that analyzes gene sequences very efficiently. Using cloud computing and this new algorithm, researchers at the hospital are now able to analyze a thousand individual genomes over a period of a week. Not only does this technology enable the hospital to help individual patients, it also helps large-scale research efforts exploring the genetic mutations that cause diseases.

Using the cloud also enables doctors and researchers worldwide to share information and collaborate more easily. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is a research program supported by the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute, whose goal is to identify genomic changes in more than 20 different types of human cancer. TCGA researchers compare the DNA samples of normal tissue with cancer tissue taken from the same patient to identify changes specific to that cancer. The researchers hope to analyze hundreds of samples for each type of cancer from many different patients to better understand what makes one cancer different from another cancer. This is critical because two patients with the same type of cancer can experience very different outcomes and respond very differently to the same treatment. Researchers hope to develop more effective, individualized treatments for each patient by connecting specific genomic changes with specific outcomes.

Critical Thinking Questions

  1. What advantages does cloud computing offer physicians and researchers in their fight against cancer?
  2. Estimate the amount of data required to analyze the human genome of 100 patients for each of 20 different types of cancer.
  3. Physicians must abide by HIPAA regulations when transmitting data back and forth to the cloud. The penalties for noncompliance are based on the level of negligence and can range from $100 to $50,000 per violation (or per record). Violations can also carry criminal charges, resulting in jail time. What measures can be taken when using cloud computing to ensure that patient confidentiality will not be violated?

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