Life Sciences & Technology Advances are More than We Imagined
Star Wars, Star Trek, The Minority Report… Each of these films portrays a future in which breakthroughs in technology are commonplace, yet well beyond the breath of our imagination.
With the continued development of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning, technology has reached a point where this Fiction is becoming more of a reality. Hidden within this idea and behind the scenes is the Life Sciences community who seemingly have begun to crack the code behind the human Genome and all that discovery can lead to within our DNA. This is not possible without technology.
In its most simple explanation – scientists can sequence your DNA to unlock genetic traits and go beyond ancestry reports. While we cannot see it, this information is made up of unlimited amounts of data. To truly understand and parse this information is well beyond the ability of any human being. Yet, technology is on the verge of allowing us to be able to not only dissect this information, but map it specifically within every individual measured.
Consider the new generation of children born into a world where Google has always existed and anything you want to know is searchable. You can ask Siri or Alexa random questions, directions, or commands. The statement, “When I was a kid, the Internet did not exist,” is something that children today are surprised to hear. They do not know what life was like before the Internet, when questions were answered by looking at paper encyclopedias or microfiche.
In the very near future, there will be a generation of people who will be surprised to hear “When I was a kid, I did not have my own Genome Map” statements. That very map in the future will be the key to preventative maintenance. If you are prone to a disease it can be caught ahead of time and treated early because technology will allow the specific marker to be targeted. This is an amazing concept and something we will see in our lifetime. However, as stated by Angel Stanz, VP Software Development & UX with OnRamp BioInformatics, Inc who focuses on human health and organism discovery, “The next great challenge before humanity is co-recognition of hosting genomics.”
The challenge is no longer to get the data. The challenge, instead, is to store the massive amount of data that exists in such a way that it can be trusted, protected, secured, and retrievable. The goal is to streamline the process for biologists so that all of the amazing benefits can be derived. This requires an efficiency and sustainability that exists within very few data center environments. In partnership with ScaleMatrix, the team at OnRamp BioInformatics is pursuing this exact goal of solving these issues when Technology and Science collide by bridging information technology and biology.
With the collection of more data, efficiently storing that data and utilizing technology to interpret that data, the future is promising in genomic studies and personalized medicine. When I was a kid, I never thought this was possible.
For more information about the partnership between OnRamp Bioinformatics and ScaleMatrix, read our press release.
Steve Croll
Enterprise Account Manager
