Artificial intelligence -based tools that can predict cancer -causing genes in an individual have been developed, opening the way to design a personalized cancer care strategy, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras on Wednesday.A device called ‘Pivot’ is designed to predict genes that cause cancer based on models that utilize information about mutations, gene expressions, and copy variations in numbers in genes and disorders in biological tissue due to changes in gene.”Cancer, becomes a complex disease, cannot be treated in one way for treatment-all. Because cancer treatment is increasingly shifting towards personalized treatment,
the model that builds towards determining the difference between patients can be very useful,” said Dr. Karthik Raman, Core member, RBCDSAI, IIT Madras, in a statement.Tools, described in the journal Frontier in genetics reviewed by peer-review, are based on machine learning models that classify genes as tumor suppressants, oncogen or neutral genes.According to the world health organization, cancer is the main cause of death worldwide and contributes almost one in six deaths in 2020.
Cancer is an uncontrolled cell growth that can occur due to mutations in the oncogen or by tumor pressure genes or both. However, not all mutations must cause cancer.Cancer treatment is now known to be detrimental to the patient’s overall health. Knowledge of genes responsible for initiation and development of cancer in patients can help determine the combination of drugs and therapy that is most suitable for patient recovery.
This new tool succeeded in predicting both existing oncogen and tumor pressure genes such as TP53, and PIK3CA, among others, and new cancer -related genes such as PRKCA, SOX9 and PSMD4.Researchers build AI prediction models for three different types of cancer including breast invasive carcinoma, large intestinal adenocarcinoma and lung adenocarcinoma.
“The field of precision medical research is still at a newborn stage. Pivot helps encourage these limitations and present prospects for experimental research based on identified genes,” said Malvika Sudhakar, Bachelor of Research, IIT Madras.The team plans to expand pivot further to more types of cancer. The team also works on a list of personalized cancer -causing genes that can help in identifying drugs that are suitable for patients based on their cancer profiles.