Blockchain and NFT-Based Solution for Genomic Data Management, Sharing, and Monetization

Abstract

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique digital assets stored on blockchains. NFTs are ideally suited for tokenizing genomic data, as they empower individuals with complete control over them. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology creates repositories of sequenced data from individuals’ raw genomic data, which raises challenges related to data ownership, management, and secure sharing. In this paper, we propose a blockchain and NFT-based solution that addresses the challenges of managing, sharing, and monetizing genomic data while preserving privacy using Threshold Cryptography and Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). We integrate the proposed solution with the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), a decentralized storage system, to handle the substantial amount of genomic data off-chain. We develop three smart contracts to facilitate genomic data management, sharing, and monetization. We introduce composable NFTs to ensure that sequenced genomic data (SGD) NFTs are always linked to the parent raw genomic data (RGD) NFTs to maintain traceability. We present various diagrams and algorithms to illustrate the functionality of our solution. Our testing and validation results demonstrate that smart contracts function as intended. The cost evaluation shows that implementing the solution on a private blockchain is more feasible and user-friendly. Our solution provides a comprehensive framework for genomic data management, sharing, and monetization, with privacy-preserving mechanisms and traceability. We provide guidelines for the generalizability of our solution beyond genomics and outline the challenges and limitations of the proposed solution. We make the source code of the smart contracts publicly available on GitHub.