Clemson research group wins IEEE Blockchain challenge
March 2, 2018
A Clemson research group led by Richard Brooks, professor of electrical and computer engineering, was named the winner of the White Board Challenge during the 2018 IEEE Blockchain for Clinical Trials Forum in Orlando this February.
(L-R) University of Tennessee Chattanooga Ph.D. student Amani Altarawneh, Clemson post doctoral fellow Lu Yu, Clemson computer engineering Ph.D. student Jon Oakley, and Clemson ECE professor Richard Brooks with their white paper presentation “Scrybe: A Blockchain Ledger for Clinical Trials.”
Blockchain technology is currently most widely known for its use in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The distributed ledger technology (DLT), which links “blocks” of encrypted transactions in a public, decentralized manner, also has uses in everything from medical data to copyright protection.
Along with Brooks, the team consisted of electrical and computer engineering professor K.C. Wang, post doctoral fellow Lu Yu, and computer engineering doctoral student Jon Oakley. Their presentation, “Scrybe: A Blockchain Ledger for Clinical Trials,” built on the group’s NSF project with researchers from Auburn University, University of Tennessee Chattanooga, and the Medical University of South Carolina.
In the White Board Challenge, teams were tasked with presenting a blockchain reference model for clinical trials application that included either a private, public or hybrid application using a distributed ledger technology. Presenters were to demonstrate a thorough understanding of a problem their distributed ledger technology model would solve and the dynamics around the potential users of their model; present a detailed record of how the end users would use the technology; and outline the model design. The Clemson team’s presentation summarized Scrybe, their novel distributed ledger technology provenance system, and it’s application in improving the integrity of clinical trial data.
For more information on the challenge and to read the team’s white paper, visit https://beyondstandards.ieee.org/blockchain/meet-the-ieee-blockchain-for-clinical-trials-whiteboard-challenge-winner/
