A researcher from IBM Haifa will manage the field of data analysis at IBM in the world * First application: adapting drugs for AIDS

One of the projects that the analysis experts at the IBM research laboratory in Haifa are working on, EuResist, focuses on the field of health and predicting drug resistance, is carried out in cooperation with a number of bodies and factors in the industry - and has already won a number of awards. Last year, the computer magazine Computerworld chose EuResist as the outstanding project of the year in the field of health.

IBM expects significant growth in the market for tools and solutions for business analysis. The use of advanced analysis tools for sales analysis allowed BMW itself to increase its sales last year by about a billion dollars - while at the same time it implements projects in this field in telecom companies, where the tools make it possible to prevent customer abandonment, in insurance companies that reduce false claims and save settlement time, and in electricity companies - such as Spain's - which saves approximately 50,000 euros per day thanks to an accurate analysis that predicts the consumption requirements at every hour throughout the day.

As part of the focus on the fields of smart analysis, Mon

Dr. Aya Sofer, from IBM's research laboratory in Haifa, to the global manager of the information management and analysis field in IBM's research system. Sofer is the first non-American director to win such a global appointment, in which she leads the activities of hundreds of researchers all over the world, including in China, Japan, India, the USA, and Zurich. As the director of the information and interaction department at the Bahama laboratory, Sofer takes care of how to interface with information.

In a conversation during a visit by journalists to the research laboratory in Haifa, Sofer explains that the field of intelligent analysis is a field of progress and formation - where the problem is handling larger amounts of information. "Information has no value if we do not know how to analyze it, and the fact is that the amount of information is increasing. The leap forward in the field of content production is amazing: if in the past a threshold of abilities was required to create content, today - everyone contributes to content creation, using different tools. Companies are collecting more and more information about customers, supply systems and so on. We all accumulate more and more data - but this data is worth nothing if we don't know how to generate the right insights at the right time."

The world of analysis focused on the first stages in the field of regular reporting, ad hoc reporting, analysis and research of information. Today, it is evolving into the world of simulation, prediction, modeling and optimization. "We want to use algorithms that know how to diagnose a situation and improve the handling of it," says Sofer. "If in the past the research labs focused on algorithms and simulation at the processor chip level - the departure of the labs to work directly with the business world gave rise to a change in direction and focus. In IBM's research laboratories, we currently work closely with consultants in the fields of industry and the market sectors in which IBM operates, in order to use the analysis technologies in these fields."

About 250 researchers and mathematicians at IBM all over the world are currently working on these problems, including more than fifty in Haifa, while harnessing algorithmic capabilities for the benefit of clients.

AIDS drug resistance prediction project

One of the projects that the analysis experts at the IBM research laboratory in Haifa are working on, EuResist, focuses on the field of health and predicting drug resistance, is carried out in cooperation with a number of bodies and factors in the industry - and has already won a number of awards. Last year, the computer magazine Computerworld chose EuResist as the outstanding project of the year in the field of health.

The new technologies and mathematical models developed by IBM researchers in the laboratory in Haifa, provide a smarter and more efficient way to choose the best drugs and the most effective combinations of different drugs to treat an AIDS patient, based on the special genetic characteristics identified in him. The EuResist system is a powerful online tool that helps doctors choose the treatment that offers the highest level of probability for stopping the process of replication of the virus in the body, and for preventing the development of drug resistance of the virus.

Despite the enormous progress in AIDS virus research, the HIV virus is able to develop resistance to any substance that prevents its replication. In this reality, doctors must continuously monitor the level of viruses in the patient's blood, and prescribe new drugs in order to maintain the effectiveness of the treatment. Maintaining a low level of the virus in the blood depends on choosing the right combination of drugs, which will work for as long as possible.

EuResist is the first and only prediction method, available free of charge for the use of health professionals, that allows a computerized prediction based on continuously updated data, of the chances of success of any treatment regimen against any mutation of the HIV virus, not only on the basis of the genetic analysis of the virus itself - but also using advanced analysis technologies that take into account the response data to the treatment as accumulated throughout the experience with this drug. The system is also the only one of its kind that offers the global medical community an estimate of the effectiveness of treatment in different combinations of drugs - and not just each drug by itself.

The researchers behind EuResist have developed new mathematical models for predicting the cost of treatment, which take into account not only the patient's own treatment history - but also large amounts of information accumulated as part of the EuResist project. The database of this pan-European project currently includes more than 33,000 patients, and 98,000 drugs and treatment patterns – along with data from 370,000 viral load tests. These volumes of information make EuResist the world's largest database in the field of HIV virus resistance and information regarding clinical responses to various drugs and diverse drug combinations.

The system provides a 76% accurate prediction - better than any other tool available today for this purpose, and from expert doctors working in the field. In a study that compared the predictive abilities of experts and the predictive abilities of 10 international experts, and examined the history of treatment in 25 cases, it was proven that EuResist is able to provide a better prognosis than nine of the ten experts.

According to Jordana Peres, a researcher at the IBM research laboratory in Haifa and who led the work within the European project, "Monitoring the history of the treatments and the progress of the virus are essential to ensure the success of the treatment. The availability of the knowledge born on the basis of large amounts of data will allow doctors to take into account the special characteristics of the patient, the nature of the virus, its mutations and the state of the disease at any given moment."

The EUResist project combines the largest databases managed in Europe in the field of AIDS, and information on the response to the various treatments according to genetic analysis of the patients' profile and the virus. Most of the data comes from databases in Italy, Germany and Sweden. The research in Haifa is being carried out as part of the sixth framework program of the European community, and it also includes researchers from the Max Planck Institute, the University Hospital in Cologne, and the European Pharmaceutical Research Industry Association, EFPIA.