GenePING: secure, scalable management of personal genomic data

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Bioinformatics
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Patient genomic data is increasingly vital for clinical decisions.
• Genome-wide profiling and genotyping will soon be widely accessible.
• Managing large-scale genomic data presents significant security and scalability hurdles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and implement a secure system for managing personal genomic data.
• To enable efficient storage, sharing, and retrieval of individual genomic data points.

Main Methods:

• Extension of the PING personal health record system.
• Implementation of security features for large, genome-sized datasets.
• Development of methods for efficient data sharing and retrieval.

Main Results:

• GenePING ensures that an attacker cannot discover stored genomic data for any single patient.
• The system prevents identification of patients or record sizes even with access to raw data.
• Security features add only a small constant computational overhead, ensuring usability.

Conclusions:

• GenePING is the first personal health record system for efficient and secure management of large genomic datasets.
• The system is available online under the LGPL license.