Empowering precision medicine: unlocking revolutionary insights through blockchain-enabled federated learning and electronic medical records

• Main Authors: Ali, Aitizaz, Al-rimy, Bander Ali Saleh, Ting, Tin Tin, Altamimi, Saad Nasser, Qasem, Sultan Noman, Saeed, Faisal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI 2023
• Subjects: QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science; TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/106924/1/BanderAliSaleh2023_EmpoweringPrecisionMedicineUnlocking.pdf; http://eprints.utm.my/106924/; http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23177476
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Precision medicine has emerged as a transformative approach to healthcare, aiming to deliver personalized treatments and therapies tailored to individual patients. However, the realization of precision medicine relies heavily on the availability of comprehensive and diverse medical data. In this context, blockchain-enabled federated learning, coupled with electronic medical records (EMRs), presents a groundbreaking solution to unlock revolutionary insights in precision medicine. This abstract explores the potential of blockchain technology to empower precision medicine by enabling secure and decentralized data sharing and analysis. By leveraging blockchain’s immutability, transparency, and cryptographic protocols, federated learning can be conducted on distributed EMR datasets without compromising patient privacy. The integration of blockchain technology ensures data integrity, traceability, and consent management, thereby addressing critical concerns associated with data privacy and security. Through the federated learning paradigm, healthcare institutions and research organizations can collaboratively train machine learning models on locally stored EMR data, without the need for data centralization. The blockchain acts as a decentralized ledger, securely recording the training process and aggregating model updates while preserving data privacy at its source. This approach allows the discovery of patterns, correlations, and novel insights across a wide range of medical conditions and patient populations. By unlocking revolutionary insights through blockchain-enabled federated learning and EMRs, precision medicine can revolutionize healthcare delivery. This paradigm shift has the potential to improve diagnosis accuracy, optimize treatment plans, identify subpopulations for clinical trials, and expedite the development of novel therapies. Furthermore, the transparent and auditable nature of blockchain technology enhances trust among stakeholders, enabling greater collaboration, data sharing, and collective intelligence in the pursuit of advancing precision medicine. In conclusion, this abstract highlights the transformative potential of blockchain-enabled federated learning in empowering precision medicine. By unlocking revolutionary insights from diverse and distributed EMR datasets, this approach paves the way for a future where healthcare is personalized, efficient, and tailored to the unique needs of each patient.