Dell Technologies has joined forces with the University of Limerick's Digital Cancer Research Centre to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) platform and digital twin technology to power predictive and diagnostic research in oncology.
The technology can help clinicians provide more effective cancer care for those with B-cell lymphoma from speeding up diagnosis to providing enhanced treatment and improving long-term outcomes for patients in Ireland and worldwide.
Dell created an AI platform for the University that delivers high performance computing power to accelerate oncology and precision medicine research. The platform sits within the Digital Cancer Centre's multicloud ecosystem. It is powered by Dell's latest storage arrays and Dell PowerEdge servers optimised for AI to produce cancer patient digital twins for better diagnostics.
With the new AI platform, researchers can: rapidly accelerate biomarker testing for cancer; gain a better understanding of how to treat patients with B-cell lymphoma; and develop personalised therapies based on a person's tumour characteristics.
By using emerging technologies, researchers at the Digital Pathology Unit at the University of Limerick's Digital Cancer Research Centre can also better understand the pathogenesis of these malignancies and develop novel therapeutic approaches. The researchers are particularly interested in the possibility that collagen within the tumour 'microenvironment' can cause the cancerous cells to spread around the body and to the central nervous system. Having already identified novel ways to block collagen, the research could lead to new treatments to help cure patients before the tumour spreads.
"Through our partnership with the Dell Technologies team, we will be able to advance our knowledge of how cells go wrong during cancer development and find new ways to diagnose and treat cancer patients," said Paul Murray, Professor of Molecular Pathology at the University of Limerick and Scientific Director of the Digital Pathology Unit at the Digital Cancer Research Centre. "This is the beginning of a very exciting research project for the team here at the University of Limerick's Digital Cancer Research Centre, and we're looking forward to accelerating this project with the digital support and insights from the team at Dell Technologies."
Details on the University of Limerick's Digital Cancer Research Centre can be found at https://www.ul.ie/limerick-dcrc.