Recapitulation of DebioNetwork PROJECT AMA event held at AMA LOVERS CLUB.

12 min readJul 23, 2021

Recapitulation of DebioNetwork PROJECT AMA event held at AMA LOVERS CLUB.

Venue: https://t.me/amaloversclub
Date: Friday, 23rd July, 2021
Time: 14:00 UTC

The DebioNetwork PROJECT team was represented by @Gamalhadid, @Mbakpandu and @DannyJakarta who judiciously shared with us detailed knowledge and information about DebioNetwork PROJECT.

1st Segment: INTRODUCTION

Q1: Can you please introduce yourselves and your background, also introduce the team working on DEBIO NETWORK?

ANS: Hi everyone: My name is Pandu -- you can find me as Decentricity on Linkedin, Github and Twitter. My website is decentri.city.
I am the CEO of the Decentralized Bio network. Go to debio.network for details.
My team includes Ibnu Gamal Al Hadid -- our Chief Science Officer -- and Kevin Janada -- our Chief Engineer. We have 6 developers and 7 biomedical professionals as well.

We are also helped by the Blocksphere team, who are here as well.

Blocksphere has been in the Blockchain space for 4 years, and has done several projects in the space, from government projects, crowdfunding projects, even banking projects. From carbon credit tracking, to cross border transfers, to supply chain, and distributed identity.

Our advisors include 7 doctors -- PhD's and medical doctors. One leads cancer research for our largest science and technology university. Another is the CIO of the largest government owned hospital. We have three researchers in biochemistry, genoics, and molecular biology. We have a doctor focusing on bioethics.

We also have a hybrid: A medical doctor who is also a Substrate developer, and part of the Polkadot Ambassador program.

DeBio started in Ethereum and won ETHDenver awards, including IPFS identity bounty, and UN SDG Bounty awards.

We then migrated to Substrate, since we wanted to ensure optimization and performance.

We then partnered with Kilt Protocol for our lab identity framework, and collaborated with the Octopus Network for interoperability with a multichain ecosystem -- NEAR, ETH, Polkadot, etc.

To look at our advisors, go to http://debio.network and click on the TEAM page.

Q2: Can you introduce DEBIO NETWORK, what critical problems does it solve that existing solutions are not solving and what's the competitive advantage?

ANS: here's the big idea: Allow you to Control and Monetize your biomedical data -- anonymously -- and do this on a web3 permissionless platform.
For some people, their DNA might be the most valuable data, the most valuable *asset* they have.
Why not own it?
Currently, companies own this set of data. Companies such as 23andme and ancestry.org, governments, and biomedical labs own your KYC and medical data more and more, as centralized entities gain more and more control and create more risk: Singapore's electronic medical records, for example, got hacked in 2018 and even their prime minister's data was taken.
At the same time, Computer Assisted Drug Design turns this data into large sums of money, an expected total of 18 billion dollars by 2025, which does not flow back to the genetic data owners, to you.
The key here is that 47% of Genetic Testing Consumers are very concerned about their privacy, and a platform that addresses this concern would win big.
Here's how we do it: We allow users to send in biomedical samples without KYC, via DeBio. DeBio provides instructions for DIY sampling, usually a simple buccal swab -- swabbing the inside of your cheeks 10x. This sample is sent within a sample bottle and an envelope with an anonymous specimen number -- like a Swiss bank account, there are no names here.
Labs receive the sample, does wetwork and analysis, and sends the genomic data and reports to encrypted IPFS storage that can only be decrypted by the user.

Here's key: we offset the expensive costs of the testing by allowing users to stake their data into a privacy preserving data marketplace, which aggregates the data and sells it; users get our $DBIO tokens in return.

Our competitive advantage:

-We provide a way for smaller labs to work together in order to provide genetic testing or biomedical testing services, thus even the labs are decentralized and can be competitive against large labs such as ancestry.org and 23andme because skillsets of several labs can integrate with each other.
- Since we offset the testing services with data staking, there is a possibility for each user to get testing for free! (since the data marketplace activities for that aggregated group of tokens connect back to the DBIO tokens that they hold.)
- No other platform provides anonymous-first testing at this scale.

Another competitive advantage is our biomedical advisors, of which there are many:

Dr. rer. Nat Marselina Irasonia Tan

Researcher specializing in molecular and cellular biology in the biomedical science field. Experienced of cancer biology, immunology, and whole genome sequencing research.

dr. Agus Mutamakin, M.Sc

CIO of a major govt-owned hospital in Indonesia and a member of the healthcare informatics technical committee of the National Standards Bureau along with the National Telemedical Program with 15 years of experience.

dr. Hendy Wijaya, M.Biomed

Researcher with a scientific specialty in biochemistry, nutrition, genetics, and metabolic disease.

Popi Septiani, PhD

Researcher specializing in genomics and bioinformatics. Experienced in genomic data analysis and transcriptomics in the medical and agriculture fields.

Karlia Meitha, Ph.D

Researcher in the molecular biology field with interest in genome editing and the small RNAs application to support sustainable living. Writes scientific articles regarding plants, within the molecular and physiology field.

dr. Theza Pellondo'u, Sp.KF

Experienced in medical forensics, medicolegal, and bioethical fields, including assisting to solve criminal cases and ethical problems within the medical field. Previously the Chairman of Law and Ethics for a private hospital in Jakarta.

dr. Kresna Sucandra, MD

An anesthesiologist, intensivist, lecturer at medical school, and medical clinics co-founder. On the tech side, works as a blockchain development engineer and startup co-founder. Actively contribute to the blockchain ecosystem in Polkadot, Bit.Country and Covalent Ambassador program.

We are also set up, fully legally and with govt permission to issue tokens, as DAOGenics, Ltd, in Singapore. You can go ahead and search for us at http://uen.gov.sg

Q3: Can you briefly describe the top milestones you have achieved and your target milestones with timelines, also share your roadmap?

ANS: Debio has progressed nicely, after friends and family seed round in January, we won awards the ETHDenver hackathon with our ethereum prototype in February -- this included winning the United Nations SDG Awards, and the IPFS Bounty for Identity.
Within a couple of months, we have expanded our ETH dapp into a Substrate parachain model, and then we migrated to the Octopus Network, which is a Substrate relay-chain that resides on top of the NEAR Protocol. In fact, we were the very first appchain on the Octopus network testnet in May, along with getting 250k in seed funding. We are gathering our strategic and then private round now while hard at work at code to do doctor onboarding.
July, we are developing our privacy computing data marketplace. August, we come into our IDO / NFT / Launchpad phase.
KILT development follows, ensuring lab consortium governance is set up, and we plan to launch mainnet in the Octopus by October 2021.
After stabilization of the nework, we will develop the datatokens concept further to increase data granularity, expand market and partnerships further, and explore B2B implementations of our platform.

Q4: So do you have information on the IDO platform?

ANS: we are in discussion with Skyward Finance, through Octopus Network

since Octopus Network is also discussing IDO there.

Q5: Can you briefly describe your PARTNERSHIPS so far?

ANS: DNA is massively interoperable; the genes in a fruitfly or dinosaur or octopus runs on you too. DeBio network will achieve the future of biomedical data by making everything interoperable, and that is why we have ongoing partnerships with the Octopus network (https://www.newsbreak.com/amp/samsung-daily/n/0a2rKUf9) and Kilt (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/debio-network-partners-kilt-protocol-120000241.html), while deploying on Substrate.

We are also finalizing a partnership with the Ocean Protocol to put our datatokens on their platform.

From a tech perspective, we utilize a lot of technologies as well:

We allow users to pay with Ethereum in their Metamask; we run our pallets on substrate; we have access to the NEAR ecosystem through Octopus; our privacy preserved data is encrypted on IPFS and computed on kubernetes; our consortium is governed through the Kilt token curated attester model.

On the bio side, we are part of DIYBio.org -- an organization of DIY labs throughout the world.

Q6: Can you give an overview of your Tokenomics, and the UTILITY of the $DEBIO Token?

ANS:

DeBio allows users to buy genetic or biomedical testing on platform with a common stablecoin, and then we offset the expensive costs of the testing by allowing users to stake their data into a privacy preserving data marketplace, which aggregates the data and sells it; users get our $DBIO tokens in return.
The data marketplace only sells aggregated data -- GENE, EMR, MED datatokens -- as ERC20. the proceeds of the data sales is used by a permissionless smart contract to buyback DBIO with Ethereum, flowing value back to the hands of the user, validators, and ecosystem.
Using Kilt protocol, we ensure labs are curated, using the GBIO Token Curated Attester model that is KYC'ed and permissioned, so even though the platform is permissionless from the user side, you can be sure that the labs have the skills and licenses.

And remember, all of this data marketplace activity flows value back to the DBIO token via our permissionless smart contract mentioned here.

The primary utility of the DBIO token is to provide rewards that offset services fees on the network, while accumulating value from the Data Marketplace of tokens. This connects the data staking mechanism to the marketplace activities of the datatokens.

Note that GBIO tokens are utilized for the semi-permissioned part of the solution, which are the labs. You cannot allow labs to be anonymous on this platform, since labs need to be credentialed and have the skills. The Kilt Protocol provides a way for Subject Matter Experts, labs, and health institutions within the GBIO consortium of token holders to curate new labs wishing to join.

The utility of each datatoken is as follows:

Each datatoken is an aggregation of the staked data that the users give consent to use. The data is simply aggregated on our end before connecting it to a compute-to-data proxy. Buyers in the data marketplace buy ERC20 datatokens related to this data aggregation. Academics that have bought datatokens and wish to execute operations on this set of data can propose algorithms to our Consortium to be run by our privacy compute nodes. Run as a Kubernetes cluster, this provides algorithm results while allowing no direct access to the data.

2nd Segment: LIVE Questions

Q1: I notice DeBio releasing 6 tokens for a system. Even staking is divide into 3 tokens. How did you end up with this many tokens? Most of the projects only have around 2 to 3 tokens in a system. won't less type of token easier to maange?

https://twitter.com/hooiyewlim/status/1417821651249500165

ANS: We actually only have 1 mainnet token, DBIO, which is provided as data staking rewards, validator rewards, and LP rewards.

We have three *data tokens* at launch, which will be put on the Ocean Marketplace to provide access to each aggregated set of data -- thus, these are tokens that allow users to buy access to the data (whether genetics, medical, or EMR data).

Using a permissionless smart contract, we swap the proceeds of the marketplace activities into ETH and then buy back $DBIO tokens. This is done automatically, and props the value of $DBIO.

We are also using $GBIO tokens, which is based on Kilt's decentralized token curated attester model, to attest the labs. Our platform is anonymous to the users, but the labs need to be attested. (Otherwise you will have fake labs in the ecosystem.) Thus GBIO is not an openly tradable token, and you can only get it if you are a lab, a hospital, or a subject matter expert within the biomedical field.

Q2: Why did you create a DNA 🧬 Testing project that must use Blockchain? Is there any specific reason for this development and Is it related to Privacy Breach, DNA 🧬 Abuse, Illegal DNA 🧬 Trading, etc.? And can you explain to us

https://mobile.twitter.com/kimakbocil/status/1418563525434220544

ANS: Currently, companies own this set of data. Companies such as 23andme and http://ancestry.org, governments, and biomedical labs own your KYC and medical data more and more, as centralized entities gain more and more control and create more risk: Singapore's electronic medical records, for example, got hacked in 2018 and even their prime minister's data was taken.
At the same time, Computer Assisted Drug Design turns this data into large sums of money, an expected total of 18 billion dollars by 2025, which does not flow back to the genetic data owners, to you.
The key here is that 47% of Genetic Testing Consumers are very concerned about their privacy, and a platform that addresses this concern would win big.
By making this a web3 decentralized platform, we are able to ensure that anonymity comes first, while allowing users to sovereignly own and monetize data.

Q3: DeBio runs in the health sector, therefore of course it requires regulations and experts in the health field (Doctoral or Professor/Scientist) so that everything goes well.
The important question, does DeBio have permits and regulations from institutions or governments to run Business and DNA Tests? Do you have a professional, qualified, and expert team in their respective fields, especially in the health sector?

https://twitter.com/edankoweyo/status/1418573090708017156

ANS: We are using the KILT token curated attesters to allow all labs (including smaller ones) to be part of our network. So we're not 1 lab, we are a myriad of labs. Our initial attesters are PhD, medical doctors, and can be seen in the Team page of the website. We believe that if there is only one lab doing the testing and sampling, it would lead to more centralization, instead of more decentralization.

The primary idea is that we do not do any genetic testing or biomedical testing ourselves. We are like the Amazon of biomedical services, in which we allow labs to use us as a digital storefront. So of course the labs have permits and regulations for this.

At the same time, DAOGenics, Ltd. in Singapore is fully registered and legal as a company limited by guarantee in that country, and have a compliance partner ethikom.com to ensure full legal and regulatory compliance.

Q4: Aside from genetics and biomedical testing, does DeBio also consider performing Covid testing for its patients?

https://twitter.com/0JeanWayne/status/1417004953445429249

ANS: Our platform is a biomedical data platform, which allows any medical testing to be hosted on the platform as well. So of course COVID-19 testing can be placed under the biomedical category too.

Q5: Bringing Genetics and Bioinformatics testing to blockchain technology platform is an absolute innovative idea, kudos to the team. One of the aim is to enable users test their samples without leaving the comfort of their homes, I assume you intend on operating worldwide, users needs to send in their samples for respective testing, how will you deal with the distance barrier as you're targeting people from different part of the world? Some samples are prone to spoilage which could affect the test results, are there measures put in place in case of such?

https://twitter.com/ZekeJay5/status/1418521920916447235?s=09

ANS: we are using a "hyperlocal" model, where only labs in your general geographical area can access you as a user if you are at the phase of sending physical samples. If you already had your genome sequenced, and you only want to retest the genome via DeBio, you can do so internationally. But the initial "physical to digital bridge" of transforming samples into reports / genetic sequences are done in that hyperlocal manner.

Please note that in the production model users would be able to *request* labs. If you don't have any local labs around you, you can stake a number of tokens to request a certain service. (This feature will be available on the testnet soon.)

Follow Us On Our Various Social Media Communities For More Update;

Website https://www.debio.network/
Whitepaper https://bit.ly/DeBioWhitepaper
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/decentralized-bio-network/
Github https://github.com/debionetwork
Twitter https://twitter.com/debio_network
Medium https://medium.com/@debionetwork.blog
Discord https://discord.com/invite/J2nWEB4Vn2
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/debio_network/