Frequently Asked Questions

myLaminin gives PIs complete control over their research data governance. PIs can automate the request/receipt of data-sharing agreements, NDAs, and participant consent forms through the myLaminin platform. They also have the ability to manage access to all research data sets or subsets of it for team members and external collaborators and can 'publish' or make available data sets as they choose where research grants warrant it. Going forward, we will deliver more capabilities such as publishing and distributed peer reviews and access to underlying research data.

myLaminin allows RLS to pre-define standard or default data-sharing agreements and consent forms for different research contexts and manage the review and signing of these agreements by third parties leveraging Adobe Acrobat Sign. This delivers enormous operational efficiencies for limited and constrained resources. myLaminin has achieved Adobe certification for integrating their Acrobat Sign (eSignature) solution into our platform.

myLaminin reduces the risk of data loss and/or data breaches as well as reduces operational inefficiencies in traditional research data management practices that exists between PIs, their teams, external collaborators, research legal services, research ethics boards, and research librarians. By leveraging the security and immutability of blockchain to deliver a robust reporting and audit trail of all research data activity, malicious actions are substantially deterred. This provides a massive improvement over current practices and solutions and mitigates the reputational damage that can be incurred for the researchers, their teams, and the institution.

We are making our service available to independent researchers shortly. Independent researchers will soon be able to start using our solution in literally minutes. Our onboarding process consists of these 4 easy steps: Complete the registration process. Establish your research project. Invite your team members, external collaborators, and participants. Manage access to your research data repository. That's it. You and your team can be up and running very quickly.

Currently we support the following: - Integration with the ARECCI screening tool and capture of that assessment. - Alert to an REB administrator of the need to engage given the nature of the research project and ARECCI screening tool score. Under development and scheduled for release in early November: - Ability of a Principal Investigator (PI) or Research Administrator to fill in and submit institutional REB forms for review. - REB administrator to assign one or more administrator to a review. - Ability for REB reviewers to comment on forms submitted. - Ability of PI to review and resolve REB reviewer feedback in an iterative fashion until approved by REB.

myLaminin was designed to use client-managed and securely-stored documents either on-premises or in cloud storage services such as AWS’ S3 or Azure Blobs. We don’t store documents on-chain. Instead, we generate hashes that uniquely tie an on-chain asset, token, or transaction to off-chain data. Some of our clients choose to host their data on their data centers and we have worked with them to integrate our service to use these data storage services. Users are not even aware of the difference. More information on this mechanism can be found here: Kaleido Document Exchange Service.

myLaminin believes that simple storage and eSignature capabilities are not enough. While we deliver these capabilities with the same rigor and security, we believe it’s important to leverage these functions in a way that allows an enterprise to support its unique workflow with its clients and other value chain participants without having to rely on constrained, internal IT resources or dated legacy systems. More importantly, because myLaminin is blockchain-enabled, we can deliver more advanced features such as verifiable credentials, digital wallets, and Tokenomics. This positions an organization to deliver a better and more advanced client service experience and outcomes.

Institutional onboarding can be done within 15 minutes! Institutions need only identify Principal Investigators (PIs) that should be invited to the platform. If they would like to take advantage of Research Legal Services (RLS) or Research Ethics Board (REB) integrations, they merely need to identify the RLS and REB administrators that are to receive system notifications and will support PIs and their teams. For institutional researchers, the next step in the process is identical to that described above for independent researchers.

A verifiable credential is a digital representation of information whose source and content can be verified as authentic and tamper-proof using cryptographic techniques. They can be used to prove identity, citizenship, certifications, provenance of information, and in many other contexts. They are unique in that they are designed to be delivered using distributed ledger technologies (DLT), blockchain solutions, that negate the need for a centralized authority or intermediary to authenticate the credential contents or origin. They also deliver new capabilities such as personal data sovereignty and selective disclosure which allows the document owner to share a subset of information on the credential where the transaction does not require the full credential content in order to protect personal privacy.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that uses advanced encryption techniques that traditional centralized solution services can't replicate. DLT platforms are more secure and resistant to hacking by producing immutable records of transactions of data handling and sharing events.

myLaminin allows an principal investigators (PIs) to invite team members and external collaborators to participate in their research. They are then prompted to review and sign the appropriate NDA or data-sharing agreement(s) and their access to research data sets is managed by the PI or their delegate. This provides a seamless 'network effect' that extends the security perimeter of the institution to include all external parties collaborating in that research. In the case of our verifiable credentials solution, an organization can invite another organization with which it has shared clients or shared commercial interests to a secure ‘trust network’ where they can share important documents and data amongst each other - and where necessary with the involvement and approval of the client. This gives them the opportunity to create new ‘network effects’ as well as commercialize the data sharing transactions between them where there is an interest to do so.

We use an enterprise-grade Blockchain-as-a-Service, Kaleido.io, headquartered in Raleigh, NC. It’s a multi-protocol, multi-cloud, and multi-region enabled platform. Our core solution is currently using the Quorum protocol with the IBFT consensus algorithm. We can also support interoperability with multiple blockchain protocols (Quorum, Hyperledger Fabric, or Corda) for discreet on-chain networks to suit client needs.

myLaminin uses a private/permissioned blockchain where no Ethereum transactions are available publicly. Indeed, the only participants with awareness or knowledge of a transaction are those directly involved in that transaction.