Monday, March 19, 2018

Why quantum computers will have a main role in the future of medicine

Image courtesy of Steve Jurvetson at Flickr.com

For a couple of decades, some large computer companies are working without much echo in the media about an absolutely incredible invention: quantum computing. The funny thing is that something so incomprehensible to the public will, with all certainty, be one of the most decisive factors in the technological changes that will come in the future. It is not easy to understand what exactly it is and what it can be useful for, considering the fact that explaining quantum mechanics is not a simple task. However, what we can know, and what we are going to talk about here, is that quantum computing is fundamentally different from the computation we currently use, and, among the millions of applications that it may have, medicine, of course, it is certainly included.

Quantum computing, as a field in full research and experimentation (although there are already quantum computers, such as D-Wave Systems,) could have a direct application in the radiology area - although not only in that one, by the way. Some sort of magnetic resonance capable of identifying specific molecules or molecular groups inside the cells and not the organism as a whole is something that a modern computer just cannot do; and such system is needed.

The usual techniques do not operate good enough with reduced quantities, so, there is still so much to do in terms of high-precision medical procedures. The resonance property of this especially matters for the systems operating today, but there are still great technical limitations that prominently reduce the field of molecules that we can measure. Currently, these barriers are now overcome - to a certain extent - thanks to the software that processes the information, but also makes the images more complicated to interpret and process.

Read also: Nanomedicine: a great hope from the small world, by Sudir Raju

Therefore, one of the current needs is a system that uses quantum techniques to alleviate the limitations of current hardware, and, in this way, to perceive the magnetic field as a whole at the same time. This is only possible if one works from the superposition and indetermination that characterize the quantum universe. By expanding the field - which is natural to the instruments we use today - it is conceivable to increment by ten the proportion between the greatest noticeable field quality and the field exactness, contrasted with the standard strategy used until now.

One of the great challenges in this field of computing is that the techniques used by quantum PCs surpass the simply electronic advancements we have reach today, and can tackle the issues with which we daily collide in biomedicine.

But there is very good news. The quantum computer of IBM can be a key piece in the future of Medicine, because, thanks to this system, the complex molecular and chemical interactions could be unraveled, and this would facilitate the discovery of new medicines and materials for clinical use.

Image courtesy of IBM Research at Flickr.com
IBM has presented a large and disruptive industrial initiative to build and commercialize universal quantum computing systems. Today, the leading technologies in computer science are executed on classic computers, based on the binary system of zeros and ones, which can find patterns and make discoveries about an inordinate amount of existing data. However, quantum computers provide solutions to problems in which the patterns cannot simply be identified, either because the data does not exist, or because the number of possibilities that should be analyzed is so huge that a modern computer could never process it.

The quantum computer that IBM is designing could cover a wide variety of thematic areas, so that all future applications of this system would enrich different fields of science, both in the social area and in Medicine. Thanks to this system, the complex molecular and chemical interactions could be deconstructed, and this would facilitate the discovery of new medicines and materials for clinical use, among other things. The quantum computer can foster a key aspect for the future of health sciences, such as nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. Thus, quantum computing could boost the capacity of areas in which this technology is developed, such as machine learning, when the flow of data is very large, without mentioning its possible uses in the analysis of images or videos. Additionally, the development of security in the cloud could bring great advances. It could make the cloud much more secure by applying the laws of quantum physics to improve the privacy of the data, and, in this way, patients' medical records would be much better protected.

Another fundamental aspect in which this technology can contribute is in the field of logistics and supply chain. In this way, the system could decipher the optimal trajectories along the global systems, for example, to optimize the management of transport fleets to deliver during a period of low maritime traffic. Also, sci-fi dreams like intelligent machines that can operate humans could be perfectly possible thanks to this revolutionary technology.

We are on the verge of a new industrial revolution, and this will positively influence medicine. Let's keep the best hopes.

Recommended: Quantum Computing And Health Care

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