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Computing solutions for medicine and life science

IT and medical research are now the driving forces with medicine pressing for ever higher performance to match an explosion in scientific discovery - and the IT industry is responding.

In the coming decades the convergence of progress in IT and medicine 'will fundamentally transform the world in ways that are even more profound than the past decade has seen with the internet', according to Carol Kovac, general manager of IBM's life sciences unit.

'The announcement of the human genome sequence in 2000 sparked an explosion of scientific discovery in biology and life sciences, which in turn has created the need for powerful new computing solutions,' Dr Kovac says.

'There's now a race to understand what those 30,000 genes are doing. If we can get those functions we can understand more fundamentally what molecules do and how to target them for treatments for new drugs.'

The driving forces in biology are similar to those in microelectronics, Carol Kovac says: 'When I did my chemistry PhD we poured solutions from one test tube to another; we did experiments one at a time. Today people do thousands of experiments at a time in little microwells on something that looks very much like a chip.

'You could put 300 gene sequencing machines in a room and build a control system, delivering far more data in a much shorter time.

'Biology was once hypothesis driven, not very complicated, where people specialised in an area. Now it's increasingly also data driven, with access to very large amounts of data, from which one can observe patterns, form hypotheses and test them. It's becoming a quantitative science.

'In the study of proteins we have partners building labs with 50-100 mass spectrometers, generating 7Tbytes of data a day. The amount of biology data is doubling every 12 months.'

Such huge amounts of data from experiments, drug trials and other sources such as individual medical histories and laboratory tests are bringing pressure for ever faster computing - and the potential for extraordinary impact on humanity, Dr Kovac says. 'It takes on average $800m to develop a new drug, and 15 years to get it to market.

There's a lot of luck involved. The hope is that the new knowledge that's being discovered in the study of genes will help us better identify promising drug targets and reduce development risks. The only way to do it is to have very powerful tools to integrate data access and mine all this data.'

Modelling, already used in engineering, is just starting to be used in biology, Dr Kovac says, thanks again to the combination of huge volumes of data, ways of analysing that data, and advances in gene and protein research. IBM is now working with several organisations on modelling the behaviour of human organs and how they might react to different stimuli. This could minimise the need for live testing of new drugs.

'Since 1920 the human life span in developed countries has gone up almost 20 years,' she says. 'Much of this came about because of understanding about infectious disease. But today's killers are heart attacks and strokes, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. We're getting older, and the diseases are those of ageing.

'Genomics is going to give us tremendous insights into these types of diseases, which have been intractable in past decades. Within 10 years perhaps we could gain another 20 years of life: children born in 2010 might expect to live into their 100s on average.

'Today your doctor prescribes according to how well a drug worked statistically in clinical trials. But the best drugs work for only 60% of the people they're prescribed for. The day is fast coming when we will be able to integrate new data about patients.

'We're already doing projects with major medical research centres to build very big databases that integrate patient data, gene data and stored samples. This can enable doctors to apply more individualised treatment. Genomics will allow us to create characterisations of patients who are high responders to a drug.

'Eventually we can get round to looking at susceptibility to disease: how likely is this person to develop a certain type of cancer, based on family history and patterns in his genome and the way proteins or genes are being expressed in the body. We can come to a true era of preventive medicine.

'Doctors are already using all this. Clustering algorithms, for example, are being applied to medical records and creating patient clusters. This has been used to isolate three different sources of leukemia in children. So now when these doctors see a new patient they don't just say, "Let's treat the leukemia," but instead can see which source a patient falls into.

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Wireless Lan market set to soar

Analyst predicts sales growth of more than 60 per cent through to 2006 Sales of wireless local area network (Lan) products will grow more than 60 per cent through to 2006, according to research by Infonetics. But the market analyst has warned that this growth is below the levels predicted by many experts.

According to Reuters, analyst Infonetics estimates international revenues from wireless hardware, primarily based on the 802.11 standard, would reach $2.72bn (o1.72bn) in 2006, up from $1.68bn (o1.07bn) in 2002. The growth will come despite widespread caution among public sector organisations, hospitals, academic institutions and large corporates about deploying wireless technology, primarily because of security concerns.

"White collar enterprises, a major potential market, still need some convincing on security and network control issues,"

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Standard ICT education vital for foreign investment - Adrian Low

More foreign investments can flow to Sri Lanka if the relevant ICT professionals continue to set in place a standard ICT education in the country and such a step will hopefully make Sri Lanka a major ICT hub in the region said Adrian Low ,Associate Dean of School of Computing ,Staffordshire University, UK in an interview with the Daily News.

He is also the Monitor to oversee the affairs of Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT) Lanka . Adrian Low with Dr.David Emery were in Sri Lanka to attend the "Study in UK" exhibition held at Hotel Oberoi.

Sri Lankan students possesses a great intellectual ability to move forward in ICT industry and low cost of production is also a conducive factor . Under such scenario the country must make use the available resources to develop ICT industry ,Low said.

The students wishing to further their studies on ICT must strive to obtain a degree in ICT as such qualification will offer better financial gains while offering quality service to the industry ,he said.

Commenting on the current ICT sector in Sri Lanka he said that the country is moving fast in comparison to the situation five years ago. An effienct combination of resources is also vital in offering quality ICT education ,he said.

The Staffordshire University UK in association with APIIT Lanka for the first time in Sri Lanka will introduce a program of Studies on Mobile Computing Technology which is an essential subject for local ICT education. Adrain Low who has been acting as the Monitor for the APIIT Lanka is due to be replaced by Dr David Emery of the same institution.

APIIT Lanka in association with other foreign universities offers foreign degrees in computer and business studies in Sri Lanka.APIIT also has classrooms provided with multimedia projectors, computer laboratories furnished with state-of-the-art resources which are essential to meet international standards. (SP)

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Traditional systems development hampers ebusiness

Companies are missing out on the full potential of ebusiness because they are failing to appreciate the implications and continuing to make the mistakes of traditional systems development, says a new study by the BCS SocioTechnical Group ebusiness projects are suffering from 'undue focus' on technology, lack of user influence, lack of attention to human and organisational issues, lack of strategic thinking, lack of evaluation, and very little integrated working internally between systems, and externally with suppliers and customers.

The study, involving interviews with 70 experts and users of ebusiness in the UK, plus questionnaires, shows for example that 62% of respondents feel that technical specialists dominate ebusiness development, 66% feel that little or no resources are spent on getting human and organisational issues right, and 57% feel that companies are totally or greatly caught up in the hype, with only 13% not seeing this as a problem. Other criticisms from those questioned include ill-specified objectives, problems of managing change, a loss of sight of business reasons for ebusiness, and missed opportunities.

'Many of the issues are not unique to ebusiness: they are old problems,' says the research report, Ebusiness Prospects - which was announced by UK eminister Stephen Timms. 'Nevertheless, there is some concern that many businesses have forgotten earlier lessons about good practice and failed to apply them to their work on ebusiness.' There are 'gaps in practice and understanding which require focused attention'.

'These include gaps between actual and good practice; in understanding, vision and leadership by senior managers; in relationships between the business and technology communities; in the provision of practical methods and tools; between users and non-users; in systemic understanding of ebusiness within businesses, between businesses and with customers; in understanding the appropriateness of new business models and channels for different circumstances; in understanding the opportunities afforded by the novel aspects of ebusiness working.'

These gaps arise not least because of some 'key novelties' that ebusiness brings: 'Some key novelties in ebusiness will require cultural changes in how businesses and the people in them think, behave and organise,' the researchers say.

'These arise through changes in speed, distance, time, cost, customer expectations, data visibility, scope - especially through supply chains, business models, competition, and systemic thinking.

'People involved in ebusiness have to grapple with an octopus whose tentacles spread not only throughout their own organisation but also along the supply chain and into their relationships with their customers,' the researchers say.

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