IBM is teaming up with the federal government to bring Watson technology into America’s largest hospital and healthcare network. The initiative is one of the first public-private partnerships setup as part of Vice President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot program. 
 
 The partnership will bring IBM’s Watson for Genomics technology into the U.S. Department of Veterans Affair’s hospitals and doctors’ offices so that more former soldiers can access the best in precision medicine in the battle against cancer. That means veterans will now have top tier access to innovative genomic treatment options. Some 3.5% of the nation’s care patients are being treated at VA facilities, the largest group of cancer patients within a single health care group. 
 
 Over the next two years, the VA hopes to treat 10,000 American veterans with targeted cancer therapies, an almost 30-fold increase from the number that is currently using those therapies today within the VA system. The initiative, which will be implemented and analyzing patient data by the third quarter this year, also gives the VA some much needed good news after investigations revealed ongoing manipulation of patient wait times and corruption among some employees. 
 
 Watson for Genomics can provide accurate genomic analysis of a cancer’s DNA by cross-referencing the sequencing data with a comprehensive database of existing medical literature. It can create, within minutes, a report for physicians identifying likely cancer-causing mutations and provides a list of potential therapies ranked by levels of evidence, replacing a previously time-intensive process. 
 
 “Genetic alterations are responsible for most cancers, but it remains challenging for most clinicians to deliver on the promise of precision medicine due to the sheer volume of data surrounding each decision that needs to be made,” said David J. Shulkin, Under Secretary for Health at the Department of Veterans Affairs in a statement. “By applying Watson to this problem, we see an opportunity to scale access to precision medicine for America’s veterans, a group most deserving of the best care in the world.” 
 
 The public-private partnership is due to be officially announced Wednesday at the National Cancer Moonshot Summit, a gathering of scientists, oncologists, donors, and patients in Washington, D.C. The daylong conference is focused on more than a 100 different types of cancers and is meant to galvanize Biden’s cancer initiative, which aims to achieve a “decade worth of advances in 5 years.” The Cancer Moonshot is doing that with a multi-prong approach, offering funding, targeted incentives, and increased private-sector coordination. 
 
 “It’s not just about developing game-changing treatments–it’s about delivering them those who need them,” Biden wrote in a post announcing the Cancer Moonshot in January. 
 
 Right now, the way precision medicine works at top tier institutes is a board of 10 to 15 doctors, known as Molecular Tumor Boards, meet once a week to examine the DNA of cancer cells of about a dozen patients. They look for mutations in genetic sequences and then determine the best specific treatment to fight that abnormality. At that rate, that ends up equaling about 1,000 cases per year, notes Steve Harvey, vice president of IBM Watson Health. 
 
 “You can see right there that this isn’t scalable,” Harvey told Fortune. “You’re limited by the number of patients that you can look at in any given week, which means that you limit the number of individuals that you can sequence.” 
 
 If Watson for Genomics can help the VA expand its precision medicine program to 10,000 cases over two years, it should be quite meaningful for the Cancer Moonshot efforts. Watson for Genomics can sort patients by level of need, sending more straight-forward analyses directly to the treating oncologist; the more complex cases are reviewed and discussed by these expert boards. Another benefit with Watson for Genomics: patients don’t have to live near the top tier cancer institutes in areas like Boston or Houston or New York City to get the most innovative care. 
 
 “Regardless of where you live, if your treating oncologist can have the same access to treatment alternatives and fact-based information as an oncologist in Boston or an oncologist in New York, that really is the democratization of health care.” ||||| WASHINGTON, June 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- At Vice President Biden's National Cancer Moonshot Summit today, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and IBM Watson Health (NYSE: IBM) announced a public-private partnership to help doctors expand and scale access to precision medicine over the next two years for 10,000 American veterans with cancer. 
 
 IBM's Watson for Genomics technology is expected to help in the department's precision oncology program by providing information to help physicians identify precision treatment options for almost 30 times more patients than could be previously served. 
 
 VA oncologists Michael Kelley (left) and Neil Spector review a Watson for Genomics DNA analysis report. On Wednesday at VP Biden's National Cancer Moonshot Summit, VA and IBM launched a public-private partnership to help doctors expand and scale access to precision medicine over the next two years for 10,000 American veterans with cancer. (Photo Credit: Martha Hoelzer) 
 
 The collaboration is expected to greatly speed up the ability of VA doctors to help identify precision treatment options for veterans. Scientists and pathologists will sequence DNA for cancer patients, then feed de-identified genetic alteration files into Watson. Watson will generate a report for physicians that identifies the likely cancer-causing mutations and possible treatment options to target those specific mutations through a comprehensive review of existing medical literature – a data-intensive process that has been time-consuming and difficult to scale in the past. 
 
 "Genetic alterations are responsible for most cancers, but it remains challenging for most clinicians to deliver on the promise of precision medicine due to the sheer volume of data surrounding each decision that needs to be made," said Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Health Dr. David J. Shulkin. "By applying Watson to this problem, we see an opportunity to scale access to precision medicine for America's veterans, a group most deserving of the best care in the world." 
 
 Veterans of war experience disproportionately high rates of cancer diagnosis and mortality and as America's largest integrated health system, VA serves 3.5 percent of the nation's cancer patients – the largest group of cancer patients in the country. Watson is expected to facilitate rapid access for veterans to personalized care, particularly for patients with advanced cancer. 
 
 "The power of cognitive computing is its ability to ingest, understand and find patterns in massive volumes of disparate data – which is one of the fundamental barriers to precision medicine today," said John Kelly, senior vice president, IBM Research and Cognitive Solutions. "In addition to helping advance clinical care, data and insights from Watson will also be shared with the research community, creating tremendous potential benefits for patients, researchers and society. Watson Health is IBM's own moonshot, and we share the Vice President's vision and goals to advance the fight against cancer through data and collaboration." 
 
 As a tool to help doctors evaluate treatment options for their patients, Watson for Genomics produces a list of potential therapies ranked by levels of evidence with links to associated research and clinical trials for physicians to consider. This information could help inform VA's healthcare professionals and veterans of promising new cancer treatments. The VA's top priorities of access to and quality of care could be enhanced through this innovative technology. 
 
 IBM's commitment to VA follows more than 2 years of collaboration with more than 20 leading cancer institutes to train and validate Watson for Genomics. Early results from academic medical centers that are using Watson for Genomics show that the technology provides insights that match what a team of scientists and clinicians – a molecular tumor board – would uncover when analyzing genome sequencing data and suggesting potential treatment options to target cancer mutations. 
 
 Both the VA and IBM have a history of innovation in the battle against cancer. The VA invested $52 million in 2015 to support nearly 250 cancer research projects, with a particular focus on better understanding and preventing cancers that are prevalent in the veteran population. IBM researchers have developed cognitive computing technologies that enable researchers and clinicians to draw insights from vast, disparate data sources, including structured and unstructured data. IBM is collaborating with healthcare organizations to apply the cognitive computing power of Watson to the data challenges of cancer. 
 
 The collaboration between IBM and the VA is also expected to help advance genomic research. Findings related to the identified treatment options in the literature will be shared with the academic community. 
 
 Learn more about this story on the IBM THINK Blog: http://asmarterplanet.com/blogs/think/2016/06/29/va-enlists-watson/ 
 
 About the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 
 
 The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the second largest federal Department providing care to the nation's 22 million Veterans. VA promotes the health, welfare and dignity of Veterans in recognition of their service to the Nation through its Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Benefits Administration and the National Cemetery Administration. 
 
 About IBM Watson Health 
 
 Watson is the first commercially available cognitive computing capability representing a new era in computing. The system, delivered through the cloud, analyzes high volumes of data, understands complex questions posed in natural language, and proposes evidence-based answers. Watson continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time, from previous interactions. In April 2015, the company launched IBM Watson Health and the Watson Health Cloud platform. The new unit will work with doctors, researchers and insurers to help them innovate by surfacing insights from the massive amount of personal health data being created and shared daily. The Watson Health Cloud can mask patient identities and allow for information to be shared and combined with a dynamic and constantly growing aggregated view of clinical, research and social health data. For more information on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/watson. For more information on IBM Watson Health, visit: ibm.com/watsonhealth. Check out the IBM Watson press kit at: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/27297.wss. Join the conversation at #ibmwatson and #watsonhealth. Follow Watson on Facebook and see Watson on YouTube and Flickr. 
 
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 IBM Watson Health Media Relations 
 
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 cgdouglass@us.ibm.com 
 
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 http://ibm.com ||||| Here's a question IBM supercomputer Watson never got to ask on "Jeopardy": What is a cure for cancer? 
 
 Watson, best known for beating champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter on the game show, will get its chance as it aids scientists using analysis of gene structures to figure out the cause of and potential cures for different strains of cancer. IBM unveiled Watson for Genomics, specifically designed for this task, at the National Cancer Moonshot Summit on Wednesday. 
 
 The addition of Watson's brain power, which can understand questions in natural language and not just the computer language of ones and zeros, could significantly accelerate cancer treatment. Typically, finding the appropriate treatment for a specific patient means sequencing his or her genome -- the complete DNA structure packed into a single cell -- finding mutations and then getting a team of seasoned doctors in a room to decide the best options. Watson can do it in less than three minutes. 
 
 This is the latest in a series of deals IBM has made to use Watson to solve health care issues, as well as help out in far different areas, even the fashion industry. The software company provided Alder Hey Children's Hospital with the supercomputer to help improve patient care. Watson also worked with CVS Health to predict health problems a person might experience and give them advice. It even helped create a dress adorned with LED lights for the Met Gala that lit up in response to the mood on social media surrounding the event. 
 
 The cognitive computing that Watson employs, making sense of unstructured data, falls into the broader field of artificial intelligence. AI has been experiencing a boom in recent months as more powerful processors and networks get more nimble at making sense of massive amounts of data. 
 
 Watson for Genomics will take on the data-intensive task of searching through sequenced DNA of patients from the Veterans Affairs Department, finding mutations and scanning medical literature to pinpoint the therapeutic treatments that would work best. The program promises to identify customized regimens for 10,000 US veterans during the next two years. That's almost 30 times more patients that would receive appropriate treatment than if the team did not use Watson. 
 
 "It is time-intensive and it's not scalable," Dr. Michael Kelly, national program director for oncology at the VA, said on the current method of finding treatment. "One human probably couldn't do it, it takes a panel." 
 
 But a supercomputer can. 
 
 Oncologists will feed Watson a sequence of DNA along with a list of the changes that are thought to cause the cancer, known as deidentified genetic alteration files. The computer will pump out a report of possible mutations as well as potential treatments after scanning contemporary medical literature and data. 
 
 Rapidly parsing through a genome sequence might seem impressive, but, "that's only one side of the coin," according to Stephen Harvey, vice president of Watson Health. "The other half of the job is filtering out things that wouldn't be clinically valuable for doctors like Dr. Kelly." 
 
 IBM chose the VA in part because the organization serves 3.5 percent of the country's cancer patients. "I couldn't think of a better cohort," Harvey said. 
 
 Correction, 4:54 a.m. PT: Michael Kelly's title has been fixed. ||||| Vice President Joe Biden could use some advice on his "moonshot" to improve the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden unveiled his “moonshot” initiative against cancer Tuesday following a shout-out from President Obama during the State of the Union address. Biden said it’s time to “accelerate our efforts to progress towards a cure, and to unleash new discoveries and breakthroughs for other deadly diseases.” 
 
 Biden’s aides have already held a series of closed-door meetings with cancer researchers. 
 
 Read more: Biden lays out road map for his ‘moonshot’ against cancer 
 
 STAT asked experts inside and outside the cancer world what advice they would offer the vice president to help move his project forward. 
 
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 Barrett Rollins: Share data from cancer patients 
 
 Otis Brawley: Use influence even after leaving office 
 
 Gary Gilliland: Make existing potentially curative treatments available to all 
 
 Austin Frakt: Invest in data infrastructure and access 
 
 By Barrett Rollins: I had the honor to be part of the contingent from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) that met last week with Vice President Biden’s staff. We proposed two efforts that could be accomplished in the near term and that could provide substantial advances against cancer. Both revolved around sharing data from cancer patients. 
 
 At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, DNA from every patient’s tumor undergoes multigene panel testing as part of our Profile project. Using a technology known as next generation sequencing, we check for the presence of mutations in more than 300 genes. Other major cancer centers also use multigene panel testing for many of their patients. The results have uncovered amazing things about cancer, some of which have led to new treatments. 
 
 Presidents have been promising to cure cancer for 45 years, but cancer is still very much with us. Alex Hogan/STAT 
 
 Most of this sequencing is being paid for by philanthropy and institutional dollars. That isn’t sustainable. The time is right for insurers to start paying for it. We recommended that the vice president ask the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to consider reimbursing multigene panel sequencing for cancer. This would vastly increase the number of cancer patients who have their tumors sequenced. 
 
 The AACR got the attention of the vice president’s staff in part because of the association’s Project GENIE. Seven institutions are pooling their clinical sequencing data and all of the clinical data associated with it. Projects analyzing these data are already underway. But the AACR doesn’t have the money or the resources to do this on a national scale. The vice president and his office could influence the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology or other entity to build a repository for sequencing data from all around the country. This would rapidly move the needle in understanding cancer and treating it more effectively. 
 
 Today, detailed genomic information about cancer is available only from comprehensive cancer centers or from individuals who have the money to pay for sequencing their tumors. We need to democratize genomic information as it applies to cancer by expanding the number of cancer patients who have their tumor genes sequenced. The benefits of this kind of testing are already so manifest that it should be made available to everyone with cancer. 
 
 Barrett J. Rollins, MD, is the chief scientific officer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Linde Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. 
 
 Otis Brawley: Cancer has been with us for thousands of years. It will not be cured in a year’s time but will take concerted, long-term, sustained effort. That said, there are several things the vice president could do in the short term to improve cancer treatment and survival. 
 
 Gathering and analyzing data about large numbers of cancer patients could provide quick and important advances. The vice president could help overcome privacy laws that do relatively little to protect privacy but a lot to keep researchers from collecting meaningful data. HIPPA and other laws — or incorrect interpretations of them — prevent researchers from sharing genetic and other data. For example, a project called CancerLinQ, organized by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, aims to improve cancer care by gathering data from around the country. But real or perceived privacy issues, along with difficulties connecting disparate electronic health records, may scuttle it. 
 
 Logistic issues and less-than-optimal care account for far too many early deaths from cancer. In Atlanta, 7 percent of black women and 2 percent of white women diagnosed with early, low-stage breast cancer don’t get treated within one year of their diagnoses. The delays, which can affect survival, are often due to problems like inability to get to a treatment center, not being able to take time off of work, and other logistic issues. Twenty percent of women with breast cancer get less-than-optimal treatment; the percentages are even higher for other cancers. 
 
 “Moonshot” may be an appropriate description for the vice president’s initiative. When John F. Kennedy announced he wanted to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, much of the engineering to do that already existed. What was needed was someone to put together all the pieces of the puzzle. Applying the science and discoveries that we already have to the American population could go a long way to preventing deaths from cancer. 
 
 Finally, it would be wonderful to see the vice president continue to be a champion for good science and clinical work after he leaves office. As someone who is liked and respected by both Democrats and Republicans, he has the opportunity and standing to provide American medicine and American science with guidance that is sorely needed. 
 
 Otis Brawley, MD, is the chief medical and scientific officer for the American Cancer Society and professor at Emory University. 
 
 By Gary Gilliland: It’s fantastic that the vice president has decided to launch a concerted effort to fight cancer. The timing is excellent, since we are at an inflection point in the way we think about cancer treatment. 
 
 This is a very different time than when President Nixon declared his war on cancer in 1971. We couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel then. Now we can. 
 
 Four or five years ago, there was little we could do for cancers like metastatic melanoma and metastatic lung cancer. Today, we are telling many patients that we can cure these diseases. This change was brought about largely because we have learned to harness the power of the immune system to attack cancer, just as it attacks foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses. 
 
 Drugs like pembrolizumab (Keytruda) — which was used to treat former President Jimmy Carter’s advanced melanoma — take the brakes off the immune system and let it go after tumors with relatively few side effects. 
 
 When I think about what the vice president could do in a relatively short time to fight cancer, it’s not about tumor sequencing or data sharing. There’s no question that these are really important and will lead to new insights, but they will take some time to pay off. Instead, I think a “moonshot” should aim to make the new, potentially curative therapies available to everyone with cancer, not just to those being treated at designated comprehensive cancer centers. We have these therapies; let’s get them out there. 
 
 With something as potentially devastating as cancer, which affects so many individuals and so many families, you don’t want to overpromise and underdeliver. But I truly believe that we have the opportunity to move forward quickly and have a more dramatic impact on cancer outcomes in the next few years than we have had in the last 50. 
 
 Gary Gilliland, MD, is the president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. 
 
 By Austin Frakt: I would urge the vice president to invest in data infrastructure and access. 
 
 Researchers spend a shockingly large amount of time accessing, or trying to access, data they need to do their work. It can take many steps to obtain clinical or administrative data, sometimes even data that has been collected specifically for researchers to use. Having to take many steps to access data, or having to overcome barriers to do it, slows research. Beefing up data availability and data infrastructure and removing regulatory and other obstacles would speed up research. Because they would accelerate a wide range of work, these are useful steps even when specific research areas haven’t yet been defined. They would give researchers and research organizations more time to efficiently and effectively do actual research instead of dealing with red tape. 
 
 Some red tape provides important functions. For example, it’s essential that clinical trial or administrative data be handled carefully, especially when it contains personal information. But the requirements often go too far and the hurdles can take too long to clear, bringing research to a crawl. 
 
 For example, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently began removing from the data they provide to researchers all records for patients with substance use disorder diagnoses. This makes it difficult to study the opioid crisis, the spread and treatment of hepatitis C (which disproportionately affects substance users), and a wide range of mental health care. This new barrier to data, which had been previously available, has derailed productive researchers who now must figure out new ways to conduct their work. 
 
 In my world, such data infrastructure issues are common. I’d be surprised if they aren’t just as common in cancer research as well. 
 
 Austin Frakt, PhD (@afrakt), is a health economist in the US Department of Veteran Affairs and associate professor at Boston University’s School of Medicine and School of Public Health. He is also an editor-in-chief of The Incidental Economist. 
 
 This story has been updated to include comments from Gary Gilliland.
– In January, President Obama handed the reins to Joe Biden to head a "moonshot" initiative to cure cancer, and a major step toward that end has just been made. Per Fortune, IBM will donate its Watson supercomputer technology—the same technology that beat humans on Jeopardy!, CNET notes—to Veterans Affairs hospitals and doctors' offices, offering precision genomic treatment to the largest cancer demographic (3.5% of all US cancer patients) in any one health-care group. At the National Cancer Moonshot Summit on Wednesday, the VA Department and IBM Watson Health said they hope to use this tech to scale up doctors' access to such treatment programs and help 10,000 or so veterans over the next two years, per a press release—about 30 times more than the current number in VA facilities using these treatments. "By applying Watson … we see an opportunity to scale access to precision medicine for America's veterans, a group most deserving of the best care in the world," the VA's undersecretary for health says. How this "Watson for Genomics" will work: After DNA sequencing on cancer patients, that info will be plugged into Watson, which will analyze and cross-reference existing medical data and then spit out what's probably causing the cancer mutations and what precision treatment is likely the best option—a task that was previously extremely time-consuming due to the volume of data and not very scalable. Plus, physicians in any part of the country—not just those near urban centers with top cancer facilities—will have access. Forbes notes the project won't do much to help patients outside the VA system and that no one knows yet exactly how effective Watson will be at pulling off this ambitious job. But it says while "efforts like the Cancer Moonshot have trouble living up to their own hype … they can grease the wheels of progress a little bit." (Watson released its own cookbook last year.)