Submitted Abstract
GenoMask POC sets out to develop a product candidate of the GenoMask box, featuring GDPR compliant, early-stage separation of personal parts of genomic information (DNA, RNA, etc.) from non-personal parts for more fine-grained protection of the former.Biomedical applications, such as personalized medicine, process large amounts of genomic information, such as DNA, RNA and proteins. The challenge addressed by our solution is efficient protection of privacy-sensitive parts in our DNA immediately after it is digitized by next-generation sequencing (NGS) machines. Our approach is to identify sensitive sequences in the reads (short strings) produced by the NGS machines. Identified sensitive parts are masked out in the insensitive information to allow for more distinguished processing and protection. For example, the subsequent alignment (locating reads in the genome) is performed entirely on insensitive information, reverting to masked out information only to refine difficult to locate reads (protecting the refined alignment result in a similar manner). Potential customers include medical research facilities, hospitals, ethnical research companies, the pharmaceutic industry and horizontal technology integrators. Increased protection of sensitive genomic information increases the confidence in the offered services and helps fulfill regulations such as the GDPR