Claudia Wallis
The biomedical world is awash in data. We have terabytes of genomic information from mouse to human, troves of health metrics from clinical trials, and reams of so-called real-world data from insurance companies and pharmacies. Using powerful computers, scientists have scrutinized this bounty with some fine results, but it has become clear that we can learn much more with an assist from artificial intelligence. Over the next decade deep-learning neural networks will likely transform how we look for patterns in data and how research is conducted and applied to human health. This special report explores the promise of this nascent revolution.