Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Language
English
Publication Date
3-4-2025
Journal
Bioinformatics
DOI
10.1093/bioinformatics/btae754
PMID
39891347
PMCID
PMC11890293
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
1-31-2025
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Abstract
Motivation: The affordability of genome sequencing and the widespread availability of genomic data have opened up new medical possibilities. Nevertheless, they also raise significant concerns regarding privacy due to the sensitive information they encompass. These privacy implications act as barriers to medical research and data availability. Researchers have proposed privacy-preserving techniques to address this, with cryptography-based methods showing the most promise. However, existing cryptography-based designs lack (i) interoperability, (ii) scalability, (iii) a high degree of privacy (i.e. compromise one to have the other), or (iv) multiparty analyses support (as most existing schemes process genomic information of each party individually). Overcoming these limitations is essential to unlocking the full potential of genomic data while ensuring privacy and data utility. Further research and development are needed to advance privacy-preserving techniques in genomics, focusing on achieving interoperability and scalability, preserving data utility, and enabling secure multiparty computation.
Results: This study aims to overcome the limitations of current cryptography-based techniques by employing a multi-key homomorphic encryption scheme. By utilizing this scheme, we have developed a comprehensive protocol capable of conducting diverse genomic analyses. Our protocol facilitates interoperability among individual genome processing and enables multiparty tests, analyses of genomic databases, and operations involving multiple databases. Consequently, our approach represents an innovative advancement in secure genomic data processing, offering enhanced protection and privacy measures.
Keywords
Computer Security, Genomics, Algorithms, Humans, Privacy, Genetic Privacy
Published Open-Access
yes
Recommended Citation
Namazi, Mina; Farahpoor, Mohammadali; Ayday, Erman; et al., "Privacy-Preserving Framework for Genomic Computations via Multi-key Homomorphic Encryption" (2025). Faculty, Staff and Student Publications. 949.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/uthshis_docs/949
Comments
All associated code and documentation are available at https://github.com/farahpoor/smkhe