snowdeal.org > {bio,medical}informatics: BMJ: How Google is changing medicine

{bio,medical} informatics

Monday, January 09, 2006

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"For all the benefits technology provides, it does provoke anxiety. In a recent letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, a New York rheumatologist describes a scene at rounds where a professor asked the presenting fellow to explain how he arrived at his diagnosis. Matter of factly, the reply came: "I entered the salient features into Google, and [the diagnosis] popped right up." The attending doctor was taken aback by the Google diagnosis. "Are we physicians no longer needed? Is an observer who can accurately select the findings to be entered in a Google search all we need for a diagnosis to appear—as if by magic?" In a post-Google world, where evidence based education is headed is anyone's guess.5 Googling your diagnosis; Googling your treatment—where is all this leading us?"

redux [12.26.05]
TechWhack News Sergey Brin and Larry Page are Financial Times men of the year
"Google’s IPO has also made big news this year as their current stock position places the net worth of the company at an amazing USD 130 billion. This brings them close to the giants of the industry IBM and is only trailed by biggest like Intel and Microsoft. However, the Google guys are not resting on their laurels, as they believe that there is much more to be done and achieved.

"Brin said in a statement: “It’s clear there’s a lot of room for improvement, there’s no inherent ceiling we’re hitting up on. Google has a large computational infrastructure – that could be very useful for microbiology or computational biology. I don’t think we particularly restrict ourselves or have a 20-year vision or anything like that. I don’t think we’re averse to doing something new.”"

redux [11.29.05]
The Sunday Times Google turns its search power to the hunt for genetic drugs
"SERGEY BRIN and Larry Page have ambitious long-term plans for Google’s expansion into biology and genetics through the fusion of science, medicine and technology."

"Over dinner and plenty of wine in February, Brin discussed the prospects for genetics with Craig Venter, the maverick biologist who decoded the human genome.

Despite millions of dollars in funding and thousands of hours of computing time from America’s federal Department of Energy, Venter needed more help to unlock the molecular mysteries of life. It seemed to him that Google’s mathematicians, scientists, technologists, and computing power had the potential to vault his research forward. He pressed Brin hard to get Google involved."

"Not long after the dinner, Brin and Page teamed up with Venter."

redux [11.08.05]
East Valley Tribune Google wonders where to go
"By the end of next year, Google intends to open an engineering center in the Valley that will employ 600. The company has said it wants to be in a place with a strong quality of life for its employees, with access to public transportation and amenities."

"Downtown Phoenix offers perfect geography, housing and the public transit amenities that Google wants, said John Chan, deputy director of the downtown development office."

"Downtown is the Valley’s financial center and it also has a growing cluster of biotechnology companies. That may interest Google, since the company is said to be intrigued by bioinformatics, the use of computers to characterize the molecular components of living things."

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“Bioinformatics will be at the core of biology in the 21st century. In fields ranging from structural biology to genomics to biomedical imaging, ready access to data and analytical tools are fundamentally changing the way investigators in the life sciences conduct research and approach problems. Complex, computationally intensive biological problems are now being addressed and promise to significantly advance our understanding of biology and medicine. No biological discipline will be unaffected by these technological breakthroughs.”

BIOINFORMATICS IN THE 21st CENTURY

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