AI tool developed to study cancer-causing mutations

Active and neutral mutations are distinguished by studying their neighbourhoods

Researchers at IIT Madras have developed an AI tool called NBDriver (neighbourhood driver) for use in analysing cancer-causing mutations in cells. By looking at the neighbourhood, or context, of a mutation in the genome, it can look at harmful “driver” mutations and distinguish them from neutral “passenger” mutations. This technique of looking at the genomic neighbourhood to make out the nature of the mutation is a novel and largely unexplored one. In a paper published in the journal Cancers, the researchers explain that the nature of the mutation depends on the neighbourhood, and how this tool may be used to draw the line between driver and passenger mutations. B. Ravindran, head of the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI at IIT Madras and one of the corresponding authors, said in a press release that one of the major challenges faced by cancer researchers involves the differentiation between the relatively small number of “driver” mutations that enable the cancer cells to grow and the large number of “passenger” mutations that do not have any effect on the progression of the disease.