A Reliable and Secure Method for Sharing Genomic Data

Area of Science:

• Genomics and Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology
• Medical Informatics

Background:

• Genomics advances medicine, enabling personalized treatments and disease understanding.
• Secure sharing of sensitive genomic data is essential for research progress.
• Existing methods for genomic data protection present challenges in security and key management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel tool for secure encryption and decryption of FASTA files.
• To enable secure genomic data sharing without common secrets and with fewer shared keys.
• To improve the security and usability of genomic data protection methods.

Main Methods:

• The proposed tool integrates symmetric encryption (Advanced Encryption Standard - AES) and asymmetric encryption (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman - RSA).
• It facilitates secure data transfer and storage for genomic datasets.
• The system is designed for efficient key management between data-sharing pairs.

Main Results:

• The developed tool provides secure encryption and decryption of FASTA files.
• It operates without requiring a common secret between users and minimizes shared keys.
• Performance tests indicate the tool is fast, reliable, and secure, surpassing existing solutions.

Conclusions:

• The new tool offers a significant advancement for the secure sharing and utilization of sensitive genomic data.
• Its combination of encryption techniques and simplified key management addresses critical needs in bioinformatics.
• This facilitates further progress in personalized medicine and genomic research through enhanced data security.