Microsoft says it is going to “solve” cancer in the next 10 years.

The company is working at treating the disease like a computer virus, that invades and corrupts the body’s cells. Once it is able to do so, it will be able to monitor for them and even potentially reprogramme them to be healthy again, experts working for Microsoft have said.

The company has built a “biological computation” unit that says its ultimate aim is to make cells into living computers. As such, they could be programmed and reprogrammed to treat any diseases, such as cancer.

13 ways to help prevent cancer Show all 13 1 /13 13 ways to help prevent cancer 13 ways to help prevent cancer Stopping smoking. This notoriously difficult habit to break sees tar build-up in the lungs and DNA alteration and causes 15,558 cancer deaths a year 13 ways to help prevent cancer Avoiding the sun, and the melanoma that comes with overexposure to harmful UV rays, could help conscientious shade-lovers dodge being one of the 7,220 people who die from it 13 ways to help prevent cancer A diet that is low in red meat can help to prevent bowel cancer, according to the research - with 30 grams a day recommended for men, and 25 a day recommended for women 13 ways to help prevent cancer Foods high in fibre, meanwhile, can further make for healthier bowels. Processed foods in developed countries appear to be causing higher rates of colon cancer than diets in continents such as Africa, which have high bean and pulse intakes 13 ways to help prevent cancer Two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables a day were given as the magic number for good diet in the research. Overall, diet causes only slightly fewer cancer deaths than sun exposure in Australia, at 7,000 a year 13 ways to help prevent cancer Obesity and being overweight, linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, causes 3,917 deaths by cancer a year on its own Getty 13 ways to help prevent cancer Dying of a cancer caused by infection also comes in highly, linked to 3,421 cancer deaths a year. Infections such as human papilloma virus - which can cause cervical cancer in women - and hepatitis - can be prevented by vaccinations and having regular check-ups 13 ways to help prevent cancer Cutting back on drinks could reduce the risk of cancers caused by alcohol - such as liver cancer, bowel cancer, breast cancer and mouth cancer - that are leading to 3,208 deaths a year 2014 Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Sitting around and not getting the heart pumping - less than one hour's exercise a day - is directly leading to about 1,800 people having lower immune functions and higher hormone levels, among other factors, that cause cancers 2011 Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Hormone replacement therapy, which is used to relieve symptoms of the menopause in women, caused 539 deaths from (mainly breast) cancer in Australia last year. It did, however, prevent 52 cases of colorectal cancers 2003 Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Insufficient breastfeeding, bizarrely, makes the top 10. Breastfeeding for 12 months could prevent 235 cancer cases a year, said the research AFP/Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Oral contraceptives, like the Pill, caused about 105 breast cancers and 52 cervical cancers - but it also prevented about 1,440 ovarian and uterine (womb) cases of cancer last year 2006 Getty Images 13 ways to help prevent cancer Taking aspirin also prevented 232 cases in the Queensland research of colorectal and oesophagal cancers - but as it can also cause strokes, is not yet recommended as a formal treatment against the risk of cancer

In the nearer term, the unit is using advanced computing research to try and set computers to work learning about drugs and diseases and suggesting new treatments to help cancer patients.

The team hopes to be able to use machine learning technologies – computers that can think and learn like humans – to read through the huge amounts of cancer research and come to understand the disease and the drugs that treat it.

At the moment, so much cancer research is published that it is impossible for any doctor to read it all. But since computers can read and understand so much more quickly, the systems will be able to read through all of the research and then put that to work on specific people’s situations.

It does that by bringing together biology, maths and computing. Those have long been treated as relatively distinct but are coming closer together in recent years, and have been spurred on by Microsoft’s investment.

“The field of biology and the field of computation might seem like chalk and cheese,” Chris Bishop, head of Microsoft Research’s Cambridge-based lab, told Fast Company. “But the complex processes that happen in cells have some similarity to those that happen in a standard desktop computer.”

As such, those complex processes can potentially be understood by a desktop computer, too. And those same computers could be used to understand how cells behave and to treat them.

If that were possible, then those computers wouldn’t only be able to understand why cells behave as they do and when they might be about to become cancerous. They’d also be able to trigger a response within a cell, reversing its decision and reprogramming it so that it is healthy again.

Does processed meat cause cancer?

Microsoft says that solution could be with us within the next five or ten years.