SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROTECTING AND GOVERNING GENOMIC AND OTHER INFORMATION

• US 20130096943A1
• Filed: 10/17/2012
• Published: 04/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intertrust Technologies Corporation (Fidelio Acquisition Co LLC)
• Original Assignee: Intertrust Technologies Corporation (Fidelio Acquisition Co LLC)
• Inventors: Maher, David P., Manente, Michael G., Shamoon, Talal G., Carey, W. Knox, Nilsson, Jarl
• Granted Patent: US 10,621,550 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6263 during internet communication, e.g. revealing personal data from cookies
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2145 Inheriting rights or properties, e.g., propagation of permissions or restrictions within a hierarchy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G16B 50/00 ICT programming tools or database systems specially adapted for bioinformatics
• CPC Class Codes: G16B 50/30 Data warehousing; Computing architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G16B 50/40 Encryption of genetic data
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/40 for data related to laboratory analysis, e.g. patient specimen analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records

Abstract

Trusted, privacy-protected systems and method are disclosed for processing, handling, and performing tests on human genomic and other information. According to some embodiments, a system is disclosed that is a cloud-based system for the trusted storage and analysis of genetic and other information. Some embodiments of the system may include or support some or all of authenticated and certified data sources; authenticated and certified diagnostic tests; and policy-based access to data.

Claims

1. A method for performing trusted computations on human genomic data, the method comprising:

receiving a set of genomic data and a computer program designed to operate on genomic data;

with a processing system, evaluating authenticity of the computer program;

with a processing system, evaluating authenticity of at least a portion of the set of genomic data;

with a processing system, evaluating a policy associated with the genomic data to determine whether to allow the computer program to operate on the genomic data; and

when the authenticity and policy evaluations are satisfactory, executing the computer program upon at least a portion of the set of genomic data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the evaluating of authenticity of the computer program and of the at least a portion of the set of genomic data, and the evaluating a policy associated with the genomic data, are carried out automatically.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the automatically carried out evaluations are carried out by a trusted medical computing system.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating diagnostic results that are useful in a medical diagnosis based at least in part on the executing of the computer program.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising certifying authenticity of the generated diagnostic results based at least in part on the evaluations of authenticity of the computer program and of the at least a portion of the set of genomic data.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the evaluation of authenticity of the computer program includes verifying at least one digital signature packaged with the received computer program.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining data requirements of the computer program based on information packaged with the received computer program.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the evaluation of authenticity of the at least a portion of the set of genomic data includes verifying at least one digital signature packaged with the received set of genomic data.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising checking the set of genomic data for data formatting anomalies.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically maintaining privacy associated with the set of genomic data based on one or more privacy policies.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer program includes a chain of executable programs.

12. A trusted medical computing system comprising:

a secure storage system configured to store at least a portion of a set of genomic data, and a computer program; and

a secure processing system programmed and configured to evaluate authenticity of the computer program, to evaluate authenticity of at least a portion of the set of genomic data, and to evaluate a permission of the computer program to operate on at least a portion of the set genomic data, and when the authenticity evaluations and the permission evaluation are satisfactory, to execute the computer program upon at least a portion of the set of genomic data.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the evaluation of authenticity of the computer program includes verifying at least one digital signature packaged with the computer program.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the evaluation of authenticity of the at least a portion of the set of genomic data includes verifying at least one digital signature packaged with the set of genomic data.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the secure processing system is further programmed and configured so as to generate diagnostic results that are useful in a medical diagnosis based at least in part on the executing of the computer program.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the secure processing system is further programmed and configured so as to certify authenticity of the generated diagnostic results based at least in part on the evaluations of authenticity of the computer program and of the at least a portion of the set of genomic data.

17. A method of generating packaged genomic data comprising:

receiving genomic data from a DNA-sequencing device;

encrypting the received genomic data;

generating a digital signature which will facilitate subsequent verification of the genomic data;

associating policy information with the genomic data, the policy information being configured for use in governing access to or use of the genomic data; and

packaging the digital signature with the encrypted genomic data.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the digital signature is generated using a private key associated with the DNA-sequencing device.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the DNA-sequencing is carried out by a sequencing facility and the digital signature is generated using a private key associated with the sequencing facility.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein metadata is packaged with the encrypted genomic data, the metadata describing sample collection information and sample source information for a sample used to generate the genomic data.

21. A method for performing trusted computations, the method comprising:

receiving a first set of data from a first entity;

receiving a second set of data from a second entity;

receiving, from at least a third entity, a computer program designed to operate on a set of data that includes at least a portion of the first set of data and at least a portion of the second set of data;

with a processing system, evaluating authenticity of the computer program;

with a processing system, evaluating authenticity of at least a portion of the first set of data and the second set of data;

with a processing system, evaluating a first policy associated with the first set of data to determine whether to allow the computer program to operate on the first set of data;

with a processing system, evaluating a second policy associated with the second set of data to determine whether to allow the computer program to operate on the second set of data; and

when the authenticity and policy evaluations are satisfactory, executing the computer program upon at least a portion of the first set of data and at least a portion of the second set of data to generate a result dependent on said at least a portion of the first set of data and said at least a portion of the second set of data.