This partnership marks the world’s first LIMS-integrated solution that fosters trust and transparency in human materials scientific research by allowing research participants to track and trace, and benefit from, the use of their samples and data.
AminoChain inc, the world’s first web3 powered bio-sample tracking platform, and CloudLIMS, a leading SOC 2 compliant and ISO 9001:2015 certified lab informatics provider, announced a strategic partnership today, marking the first-ever integration between a Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform and a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) LIMS provider. This historic partnership serves as the first-ever seamless and scalable solution to inform biobank research participants on the utilization of their donated biospecimens, return scientific and commercial value, thus fostering longitudinal trust in scientific research and development.
All biobanks, in one way or another, face the perennial issues of lack of transparency and benefit-sharing with research participants. Today, human subjects research is an extremely one-sided process in which patients/donors give their samples to a researcher, sign a consent document, and never see their samples again. This broken value chain causes several frustrating downstream mishaps after sample de-identification; for instance, losing track of donor consent, returning incidental findings from non-diagnostic protocols, and unclear or restricted capacities to re-use or share samples with 3rd party institutions.
“AminoChain is building a platform that will be the bedrock of trust in scientific research and in 10 years’ time, this is the only way bio-samples will be donated”, explains AminoChain’s founder and CEO, Caspar Barnes. “I am a firm believer that we will soon look back at how research is currently done and find it archaic and absurd that we never gave patients a way to stay connected with their samples”.
“We have been fostering ethical biobanking with our LIMS that enforces compliance with biobanking regulations and best practices. This partnership takes our effort a step further by empowering biobanks with a HIPAA-compliant solution using which they can facilitate sample donors to follow the lifetime journey of their donated samples,” avers Shonali Paul, COO, CloudLIMS. “The integrated solution will offer our cutting-edge LIMS functionality combined with consent and sample usage tracking from AminoChain to biobanks, making it a valuable proposition for biobanks across the globe.”
Image 1: Securely manage de-identified donor data using CloudLIMS, a biorepository management system
AminoChain’s proprietary “Node” software integrates with CloudLIMS to turn donated biomaterials into Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and uses these to store associations between de-identified samples and derived research data. This BaaS-SaaS interaction unlocks a huge untapped potential in biobanking human samples. The AminoChain-CloudLIMS collaboration will allow CloudLIMS users to effortlessly track sample use, promote donor autonomy and engagement, return incidental findings from research, and execute Material Transfer Agreements in 5 clicks as opposed to 5 weeks. All these capacities are powered by an abstracted-away blockchain network in which no new software training or lengthy integrations are needed.
About AminoChain
AminoChain is a rapidly growing start-up that spun out of the Antler pre-seed accelerator, and they have the bold and daring mission of becoming the brand name of trust in scientific research. The company has deeply rooted values of giving back and levelling the playing field of scientific research, and it is their firm belief that creating a more research participant-centric experience is what is required to address many of the bottlenecks in advancing precision medicine. CEO Caspar Barnes, boasts graduate degrees in management and biotechnology from London Business School and Columbia University, and spans professional experiences ranging from finance to bench side oncology research. AminoChain’s software development team has 15+ years of programming expertise with 7+ years of blockchain development experience.
About CloudLIMS
CloudLIMS.com offers a secure, in-the-cloud, SaaS LIMS with zero upfront cost purpose-built for biobanks. CloudLIMS offers a wide range of complimentary services, including technical support and training, automatic product upgrades, legacy data migration, product configuration, automatic data back-ups twice a day, and secure data access. CloudLIMS helps biobanks maintain user access for PHI control, manage samples and metadata, automate and streamline workflows, meet compliance and follow best practices such as ISO 20387:2018, EU GDPR, HIPAA, 21 CFR Part 11, and ISBER Best Practices. CloudLIMS.com is a SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and ISO 9001:2015 certified informatics company.
AminoChain Contact:
Caspar Barnes
www.aminochain.io
Caspar.barnes@aminochain.io
CloudLIMS Contact:
Mrinal Kanti Chatterjee
CloudLIMS.com
302-789-0447
support@cloudlims.com