Googling Cancer: Search Algorithms Can Scan Disease for Patient Risk

Choi, Charles, Q. "Googling Cancer: Search Algorithms Can Scan Disease for Patient Risk. Txchnologist, sponsored by G.E., May 17, 2012.

From the article: "The algorithm Google uses to rank which results pop up first in search queries, PageRank, orders results based on how other web pages are connected to them via hyperlinks. Researchers modified PageRank to develop NetRank, which scans how genes and proteins in a cell are similarly connected through a network of interactions with their neighbors — “‘friends’ in the social network analogy… The researchers used NetRank on about 20,000 proteins to see which ones were the best indicators for survival. They identified seven proteins that could help assess how aggressive a patient’s tumor is and guide clinicians to decide if the prognosis was worth trying chemotherapy or not." Read more

 

See also

Winter C, Kristiansen G, S. Kersting, J. Roy, D. Aust, et al. (2012) Google Goes Cancer: Improving Outcome Prediction for Cancer Patients by Network-Based Ranking of Marker Genes. PLoS Comput Biol 8(5): e1002511.