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LabTrace Completes First Study Using Its Blockchain-Based Data Authentication System, Designed to Ensure Data Integrity in Clinical Trials
Parkinson’s disease research, sponsored by King’s College London, verifies clinical observation data using Algorand blockchain
LONDON, June 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Lab tracka blockchain authentication system for data integrity and ownership certification, today announces the completion of the first experimental medicine study (Reference ID: NCT03782753) to use its on-chain authentication tool, a new solution for proving the provenance of medical research data. The study, sponsored by King’s College London (KCL), involved patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Using the Algorand blockchain, LabTrace has brought unprecedented transparency, accountability and security to the verification of scientific research data.
There is growing concern that the exponential expansion of digital data in healthcare and medical research is accompanied by a growing incidence of scientific fraud. Second The Guardian, in 2023 “the annual number of articles retracted from research journals exceeded 10,000 for the first time” and “most analysts believe that this figure is just the tip of the iceberg of scientific fraud”. One reason cited for the increase in falsified data is the pressure to generate successful, high-impact results, which offer researchers greater recognition and career advancement opportunities.
“Progress in science and medicine depends critically on the quality of the data collected in our research studies and we take this responsibility very seriously,” said Professor Steve Williams, director of the Center of Neuroimaging Science at King’s College London and researcher principal of the study. “The integrity of research data is the foundation of medical innovations, and LabTrace’s blockchain-based system gives us the level of transparency we need to trust, track and authenticate our data.”
LabTrace’s blockchain-based data authentication system offers a unique and transparent solution for:
- Certify the paternity and provenance of the data
- Establish and record a researcher’s ownership rights to data and findings
- Securely mark test data, original works, ideas and inventions and record them in a verifiable manner
- Support drug approvals and patent applications
- Protect yourself from intellectual property and data theft
This is done by attaching unique Content IDs (CIDs), which follow IPFS standards, to all recorded data. Each CID file is authenticated on-chain by authorized entities, with user permissions defined and controlled by an Algorand smart contract (i.e. role-based access control). KCL implemented LabTrace as an additional layer of immutable recordkeeping and to demonstrate a viable path to maintaining the integrity of digital medical data.
After reviewing the blockchain landscape, LabTrace determined that Algorand, a leading Tier 1 solution known for its high performance and reliability, was best suited to meet the rigorous requirements of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. The specific benefits of Algorand are:
- Its Layer-1 smart contract programmability, which enables role-based access control
- High processing capacity of 10,000 transactions (or on-chain records) per second
- High certainty and immediate finality of transactions, which provide an immediate and immutable guarantee of the information recorded in the register.
It is possible to view the timestamps and authenticated authentications that certify the results of the process Here.
“This is an important result for our company, as it demonstrates that our solution can be readily adopted in experimental medicine studies, managing data of any type,” said Federico Turkheimer, professor at King’s College London and director of LabTrace. “We believe we have created a solution to enable complete data traceability in clinical trials and increase scientific reproducibility in medical research.”
“With AI expanding the scope and sophistication of potential data manipulation and fraud, it is more important than ever that researchers, regulators, and the public have reliable data sources,” said Eric Wragge, global head of corporate development and capital markets for the Algorand Foundation. “Accurate data is the foundation of scientific progress everywhere, and we are honored that Algorand is the blockchain upon which the Labtrace solution is built.”
About LabTrace
LabTrace believes that certified and verifiable data is the core of a trusted digital company. The company’s mission is to enable full data traceability in clinical trials and increase scientific reproducibility in medical research. To further this goal, LabTrace has created a blockchain-based system for secure, GDPR-compliant, and immutable authentication of digital data. For more information visit www.labtrace.io.
About the Algorand Foundation
Algorand’s mission is to power a world where information has integrity and innovative ideas can scale. The Algorand Foundation supports Algorand’s rapidly growing ecosystem by providing a best-in-class development environment, supporting key infrastructure and defining technical standards, offering comprehensive support to builders and entrepreneurs, and providing the infrastructure for decentralized governance.
Founded by Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Micali in 2019, Algorand has grown into a vibrant ecosystem of developers, entrepreneurs, and enterprise partners who benefit from institutional-grade certainty and resilience, while features like low fees, instant finality, and a minimal carbon footprint also appeal to the protocol’s millions of retail users. Builders of all types can use common programming languages like Python to develop advanced apps and protocols that solve important problems on a global scale: instant payments in war zones and disasters, self-sovereign identity for the marginalized, supply chain traceability for global trade, permissionless protocols that address financial inclusion, and the creation of entirely new markets through tokenization, to name a few. To learn more and start your Algorand journey, visit algorand foundation.
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