Moscow [Russia], February 13: Russian scientists have started experiments with quantum technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, local media reported on Tuesday, citing a report from the Future Technologies Forum 2024.
"The potential of quantum technologies in general and quantum computers, in particular, is not yet fully revealed, but they will definitely find their use in medicine," says the analytical report titled "Quantum Technologies for Medicine."
The two-day forum, which kicked off in Moscow on Tuesday, will focus on the future of medicine.
"The method of genome assembly using quantum algorithms, developed by the Russian Quantum Center, the company Quboard and the company Genotek, significantly facilitated the study of new species and structural changes in DNA, which cannot be detected by mapping, and genomic rearrangements in cancer cells," said the report.
"The potential of quantum machine learning can be used to discover new biomarkers for cancer treatment. Several studies in the field of quantum machine learning are aimed at studying genetic diseases -- quantum algorithms have been developed that can classify genomic data much faster than a conventional computer," it said.
The report also named highly sensitive quantum magnetic field sensors among the most promising areas. "With the help of quantum sensors, it is possible to measure and visualize biomagnetic fields, which in the future will make it possible to diagnose brain tumors, epilepsy and Alzheime's syrndrome non-invasively and with greater accuracy than existing methods such as EEG and MRI," it added.
However, quantum technologies also pose new threats, particularly related to access to personal data. To protect information in the conditions of the existence of a quantum computer, it is necessary to introduce post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, which will keep secret the data over which calculations are performed, the authors emphasize.
Source: Xinhua