Life's Code: Blockchain and the Future of Genomics

For those concerned to protect this most critical form of identity, blockchain has piqued considerable interest as a powerful alternative to the closed architectures and proprietary exploits of the existing genomics data market - promising in their stead a secure and open protocol for life's code.

While Nebula won't subsidize whole genome sequencing directly, a blockchain model would allow interested buyers - say, two pharmaceutical companies - to pitch in the cash for someone's sequence in return for access to their data.

In this increasingly opaque genomics data landscape, private firms monetize the genotypic data spawned by their consumers, and sequence data is fragmented across proprietary, centralized silos - whether in the unwieldy legacy systems of health care and research institutions or in the privately-owned troves of biotech firms.

Nebula, for its part, envisions that even on a blockchain, data transfer is unnecessary and ill-advised, given the unique sensitivity of genomics.

"Your data can be analyzed locally on your computer by you just running an app on your data yourself [] with additional security measures in place - for example, by using homomorphic encryption to share data in an encrypted form."

"The data buyer doesn't get the underlying data itself but computes on its encrypted form to derive results from it. Code is therefore being moved to the data rather than data being moved to researchers."

Consumer genetic testing firms have already been accused of leaving their clients "With lots of data and few answers." Beyond satisfying genealogical curiosity and interpreting a range of 'wellness' genes, 23andMe can reveal whether you carry a genetic variant that could impact your child's future health and has - as of 2017 - even been authorized to disclose genetic health risks, including for breast cancer and Parkinson's.

"Lifestyle data comes from wearables, smartphones, smart homes, smart cities, purchasing, commercial interactions, social media, etc. Another is carried by everyone, and that's our genome. The third is clinical and health-condition data generated in the health care system."

Brama used the analogy of a deck of cards to explain how blockchain could be the key to starting to bring this data into connection, all the while protecting data owners' anonymity.

A user might choose to put the correlation between transactions for their different wallets on the blockchain and make it public for people to bid on the underlying data.