Blockchain is disrupting many facets of personal and business live. This presentation presents the best use cases out there in Novemeber 2018 as to how blockchain is being applied to the scientific world : in enabling open research and open science, in biology, astronomy, healthcare, clinical trials, genomics, cryonics, radiology, life sciences, supply chains and provenance, livestock sustainability, weather forecasting , air pollution, carbon emissions and other items related to smart cities and the environment.

1. Malta Café Scientifique – November 2018
Blockchain Use Cases
In Science
Johan Zammit
j.zammit@smartstudios.io

2. About Me
- Founder & CEO at Smart Studios
- Chair at Malta Innovation Summit
- Board Member at Silicon Valletta
- Blockchain Mentor at MITA Innovation Hub
- Visiting Lecturer at University Of Malta
- Co-Founder at NetRefer

3. Agenda
- What’s So Special About Blockchain?
- Use Cases
- Science Use Cases
- Q&A

4. What’s A Blockchain?
A distributed ledger that is
Transparent
Immutable
Secure

5. What’s So Special About Blockchain?
For the FIRST time in history
a) you have a way to prove that you OWN a digital record.
Ownership is undisputed.
b) you can securely transfer that digital record to another person
without needing a 3rd party
This record can represent money, titles, deeds, music, art, scientific
discoveries, intellectual property, and even votes.
Achieves Scarcity & Solves “Double Spending”

6. Blockchain Brings Trust
Digital Trust That Enables Trustless Trade
Through A Trustless Consensus

7. Less Costs
via Automation
No Middlemen
Less Delays
via Automation
Less Fraud
via Transparency
Immutability
Blockchain + Smart Contracts Automation
A smart contact is an application that run exactly as programmed without
any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.

8. Smart Contract? Think “Vending Machine”

9. Use Cases

10. Use Cases

11. Top 8 Blockchain Use Cases
Supply Chain + IOT skuchain.com
Provenance provenance.org
Registries (eg. land registry) chromaway.com
Healthcare medicalchain.com
Insurance fdd.etherisc.com
Voting followmyvote.com
Credentials learningmachine.com
P2P Energy Trading lo3energy.com

12. Other Blockchain Use Cases
Car Leasing oakeninnovations.com
iGaming dao.casino
Decentalised File Storage storj.io
Rendering golem.network
Social Media / Content phantasma.io
Esports firstBlood.io
Foreign Aid & Charity projectbifronst.com
Ride Sharing lazooz.org

13. Other Blockchain Use Cases
Decentralised Name Service onename.com
Ticketing System guts.tickets
HR & Recruitment chronobank.io
Decentralised Marketplace openbazaar.org
Electric Vehicle Charging shareandcharge.com
Art Verification verisart.com
Music Royalties soundac.io

14. Where Is Blockchain At Its Best?
Where multiple stakeholders require
Transparency, Security & Immutability
Where there is lack of trust between stakeholders.
(nowhere else)

15. Healthcare
Slide by Maersk
Supply Chain

17. Blockchain
Use Cases
In Science

18. Health Sciences

20. Healthcare

21. Healthcare

22. Healthcare

23. Healthcare
Doc.ai

24. HealthcareClinical Trials

25. HealthcareClinical Trials
The patient: I donate some of my health data profile to start the
trial, retaining my privacy
Trial sponsor: I give you back data from participating in the trial
Blockchain, IOT, smart contract based clinical trail supply chain
ensures faster patient recruitment, data integrity, provenance,
reduces time to market.
Examples consilx.com clintex.io

26. Outcome Based Contracts

27. Genomics
A branch of molecular biology concerned with
the structure, function, evolution, and mapping
of genomes.
A genome is the full set of genetic information
that an organism carries in its DNA.

28. Genomics
Platforms for storing,
exchanging and
processing genetic
info
• Arnagenomics
• Zenome
• Nebula
• Shivom
• Encypgen

29. Towards Precision Medicine
geneblockchain.org

30. Space
spacedecentral.net

31. Astronomy
spacedecentral.net - decentralized space program

32. Astronomy
Aikon.com and Hadron.cloud are using blockchain
for processing the 100TB image data from the
Hubble Space Telescope.
Crowdsourced computing power 10x cheaper than the standard cloud
used to process AI tasks.

33. Radiology
deepradiology.com
voxelx.com

34. Life Sciences Supply Chain
A

35. Life Sciences Supply Chain
A
Lifestock Sustainability

36. Weather Based Smart Contracts
A
etherisc.comweatherblock.org

37. Air Pollution
filament.com

38. Research Cycle

39. Challenges In The Research Cycle
Researchers
• do a lot of hard, in depth research
• submit a proposal and apply for funding
• are reluctant to share their ideas / intellectual property
• push as many papers as possible to be published in journals
• get their papers peer-reviewed, but reviewers might not be
rewarded properly either
• get rewarded less than publisher, or not at all for citations
• copyright belongs to the publisher

40. The Solution : Open Science
Science is all about testing ideas with data and evidence.
Open science is about making that process as transparent as
possible so that nothing has to be taken on trust.
Blockchain is a way of trustlessly recording data.

41. The Solution
Collaboration platforms inspired by “open science” with journal
workflow controlled by smart contracts and incentivised by a
cryptocurrency
sciencematters.io
artifacts.ai
moringa.pub
frankl.io
pluto.network
scienceroot.com
deip.world

42. Decentralised Autonomous Research Org.
open-source, smart contract based entity that collects
research funds and resources. The backers will be able
to decide together with the researchers how the
research money should be spent.
• an idea is submitted
• innovators respond
• community votes
• POC improved iteratively
• voting rounds continue

43. Integrity & Provenance of Research Data
Ability to acquire provable, immutable research data.
• Immutable timestamps
• Trusted devices
• Digital signatures

44. Evaluating Research
• Enabling unbiased peer-to-peer reviews
• Peers get rewarded for the review
• Published research could be “notorised” on blockchain
• Cryptographic validation of author and document immutability
• Research anonymity for whistleblowing / an unorthodox stand
• Example “A German university professor with more than 20
papers” .. without showing his name
Publishing Research

45. Funding Research
• Tracking of funding distribution
• Enabling crowdfunding. Pooling funding. (ICO?!?)
• Reward researchers for creating, curating, reusing and
improving scientific content
• Proportional attribution including citations. Platform economics.
• Paying by token for
• patent use, use of ideas
• peer review
• publishing (to the editors)

46. P2P Energy Trading
Peer-to-peer buying and selling of energy
Community solar power generation
Local residents trade the energy they produce from panels.
• Eliminates intermediaries (no Enemalta in between)
• Promotes solar & alternative energy sources
• Promoted energy sharing
lo3energy.com powerledger.io brooklynmicrogrid.com
solarchange.co electron.org.uk bankymoon.com

48. Proof Of Existence, Timestamp, Authenticity
You made a scientific discovery. How do you prove its contents and
the date?
Notorising the document. Publishing cryptographic hashes provides
an irrefutable “proof of existence.”
Proof of Ownership
Proof of Existence
Proof of Integrity
Proof Of Receipt

49. Proof Of Existence, Timestamp, Authenticity
proofofexistence.com
originstamp.org
factom.com
blocknotary.com
stampery.com
blockverity – anti-counterfeit
nottar.io
binded.com – copyright
po.et
Standard : opentimestamps.org

50. Provenance
Where did the medicine you had today originate from?
Ability to precisely trace a product from inception
Ability to store records of verified ownership
• Reduces risk of theft, trafficking, and fraud
• Detect stolen goods
• Ensure no counterfeit. Ensures authenticity
• Less insurance costs
• Increases trust in trading marketplaces provenance.org
mediledger.com

51. Smart Cities
• Sharing Economy : car/apartments/assets are shared –
maximising their utilisation.
• Data Trading Economy : persons and IOT devices create and
trade data.
smart waste management
decreased pollution
improved transportation
increased business productivity
peer-to-peer (P2P) green energy network
decentralized identity management
improved government efficiency

52. Smart Cities

53. Environmental Sciences
Tracking of carbon foot print
P2P green energy trading powerledger wepower

54. What Challenges Are We Facing?
Technology is still in its infancy. Has scalability & transaction cost issues
Technologists with extensive experience are scarce. There is a learning curve.
Startups face competition from new & existing market players
Integrating to the ecosystem - existing financial, governmental systems
Volatility of crypto prices
Garbage In – Garbage Out
Importing the historical data into the blockchain

55. Blockchain 3.0

56. Environmental Sciences

57. Johan Zammit
j.zammit@smartstudios.io
• If applied correctly, blockchain can
help science where other
technologies cannot.
• There are challenges yet the hype
is fading away and turning into
real opportunities.
Key Take-Aways