Using Watson To Diagnose Skin Cancer: Interview With IBM Computer Vision Scientist, Noel Codella

With an approximate 100,000 people in the US diagnosed with melanoma each year and a total of 5 million diagnosed with a variety of other skin cancers, a lot of research has gone into improving current methods of early detection and speeding up diagnoses. Unfortunately, in addition to a highly-trained pair of eyes and significant waiting time, physicians require skin biopsies to confidently diagnose a skin lesion as melanoma, the deadliest form of the skin cancers. Thankfully, researchers at IBM have been studying how to take advantage of Watson’s computing capabilities, combined with recent advances in machine learning algorithms, to assist physicians in examining skin lesions.