Russia's Internet giant Yandex together with a British-Swedish drug company AstraZeneca and the Russian Society of Clinical Oncology will launch a platform for cancer diagnostics through DNA testing, the Kommersant newspaper reported Tuesday.
The platform, called RAY, is designed to improve the methods of cancer diagnostics and detect a person's predisposition to cancer, Kommersant reported, citing an unidentified Yandex representative and AstraZeneca spokeswoman Marina Rozhdestvina.
The cancer diagnostics platform is the first experience in the field of medicine by Yandex Data Factory, Yandex's division providing big data-processing services.
The program analyzes the uploaded results of DNA testing, generates a report about the found mutations in the genome of the patients, and provides information on its possible effects and recommendations on treatment.
The testing of the platform will begin in December. If testing is successful, RAY will become a paid service. However, some of its elements, such as the mutation database of Russian patients, will probably be available to the medical community for free, Yandex's representative told the paper.
