Comments on Watson, the Microbiome of Children, and Patient-reported Outcomes

[...]the authors have done a good job of decommercializing their message about what Watson, the IBM platform that utilizes cognitive computing, can do for big data approaches to drug discovery and development as well as for understanding and integrating data that bear on other complex questions in the life sciences. For this reason observer-reported outcomes are not covered in the articles in this issue. Because cancer treatment is rarely if ever elementary, the perspectives that family members or significant others have can meaningfully contribute to acceptance and adherence to regimens that might otherwise be jettisoned.