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Fourteen U.S. and Canadian cancer institutes will use International Business Machines Corp's Watson computer system to choose therapies based on a tumor's genetic fingerprints, the company said on Tuesday, the latest step toward bringing personalized cancer treatments to more patients. Oncology is the first specialty where matching therapy to DNA has improved outcomes for some patients, inspiring the "precision medicine initiative" President Barack Obama announced in January. (Begley, 5/5)

Cancer patients at the University of Washington Medical Center could soon see faster DNA-based analysis of personalized, precision treatments thanks to a new collaboration with IBM’s Watson super computer. UWMC is among more than a dozen cancer centers nationwide to join a new effort that could speed up genetic profile results from weeks to minutes, organizers announced Tuesday. (Aleccia, 5/5)

Researchers at the University of Kansas Cancer Center now have some of the same IBM Watson computer technology that famously beat the best human players of the game show “Jeopardy” a few years back. Instead of giving Watson answers to “Jeopardy” questions, doctors at KU and 12 other cancer centers in the United States and Canada will be feeding the computer system reams of data on patient genomes. Ultimately, Watson will use this genomic information — as well as data from medical journals, clinical studies and treatment guidelines — to come up with treatment options tailored to individual patients. (Bavley, 5/5)