ReGene: Blockchain backup of genome data and restoration of pre-engineered expressed phenotype

Abstract

Molecular and genetic therapeutics, extended lifespans, and the repair augmentation of the human body remain key cornerstones of current, emerging and future medical science and technology. While internal and external prosthetics have formed the foundation of this goal, the growing utility and ubiquity of genetic engineering and synthetic genomics—already being successful in early preventative therapeutic applications—promise a future in which cells, tissues and organs are likely to be designed to express novel biological structures and preprogrammed functions, the latter encompassing those capable of performing technological operations, including but not limited to direct communications with the exogenous world. Achieving this will require and accelerate the ongoing interdigitation of biology and technology, with these two domains eventually merging. This emergent transdisciplinarian environment will have the potential to render external and implanted technological devices obsolete, as their features are then performed by their synthetic biological and molecular replacements. There is, however, one operational concern for which a solution has yet to have been determined—that is, anomalies in synthetic genomics and genome engineering somatic expression. Here, I propose a blockchain-based solution that—rather than being limited to providing genomic privacy, security and anonymous data analysis, as is currently the case—would provide a method for reversing phenotypical expression errors should they occur. By so doing, ReGene addresses both actual and perceived risk, thereby ameliorating personal, medical, legislative and other areas of resistance to commercial applications of advanced genetic engineering and synthetic genomics.