IBM's Watson is now training to be a cancer specialist

Houston

CANDIDA Vitale and the other fellows at MD Anderson's leukaemia treatment centre had known each other for only a few months, but they already were very tight. But she wasn't quite sure what to make of the new guy.

Rumour had it that he had finished med school in two years and had a photographic memory of thousands of journal articles and relevant clinical trials. When the fellows were asked to summarise patients' records for the senior faculty in the mornings, he always seemed to have the best answers.

"I was surprised," said Ms Vitale, a 31-year-old who received her medical degree in Italy. "Even if you work all night, …