Ge­nomics meets blockchain: Har­vard team fea­tur­ing George Church launch­es peer-to-peer genome se­quenc­ing start­up

George Church has long ad­vo­cat­ed for big da­ta in ge­nomics; his lab at Har­vard pi­lot­ed a project to col­lect and share vol­un­teers’ ge­nom­ic da­ta for col­lab­o­ra­tive re­search. Now, with two oth­er Har­vard-con­nect­ed founders, he’s tak­ing the shar­ing one step fur­ther by in­cor­po­rat­ing blockchain, the ledger sys­tem most fa­mous for pow­er­ing Bit­coin.

Neb­u­la Ge­nomics emerged from stealth mode Wednes­day with a whitepa­per — not a press re­lease — de­tail­ing its vi­sion. In that world, any­one can se­quence their genome at a low cost, glean in­sights from the re­sults, and have to­tal con­trol on what they want to do with them.

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