Google Genomics — the cloud-based platform that helps the science community store, process, and manage large swathes of genomic data — has partnered with Massachusetts-based biomedical and genomic research hub, Broad Institute, to improve DNA analysis and help cure diseases through personalized healthcare based on an individual’s DNA makeup. To do this, a gargantuan amount of data is required to establish how various treatments impact a specific DNA profile, and this in turn requires the power of cloud-computing.

Google and Broad Institute will be working together on new tools to “propel biomedical research, using deep bioinformatics expertise, powerful analytics, and massive computing infrastructure,” the blog post explains.

The two parties will start by bringing Broad Institute’s Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK) to the Google Cloud Platform.The two parties will start by bringing Broad Institute’s Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK) to the Google Cloud Platform and offer it as a service. GATK can analyze “high-throughput genomic sequencing data,” and has been made available for free to academics and other non-profit users. More than 20,000 users have processed genomic data through the software to date. And with the help of Google Cloud, the same service will let any genomic researcher add, store, and analyze data in the cloud.

“Large-scale genomic information is accelerating scientific progress in cancer, diabetes, psychiatric disorders and many other diseases,” said Eric Lander, president and director of Broad Institute. “Storing, analyzing and managing these data is becoming a critical challenge for biomedical researchers.”

Beyond Google, Amazon and Microsoft, among others, are also trying to find their place in the ever evolving (digital) healthcare market, partly enabled by the Affordable Care Act and partly by the wonders of modern technologies such as big data, mobile, wearable sensors, and so on.

[Via: VentureBeat]