A new patent application from Intel suggests that the technical giant is considering ways to use the energy expended during the development of crypto-currency funds for the sequencing of genetic data.
In a patent application first filed in June 2016 and issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, inventors Ned Smith and Rajesh Poernachandran describe the type of computer called the Sequence Production Platform (SMP), which identifies the order of the nucleotide bases in the deoxyribonucleic ( DNA) and ribonucleic (RNA) acids.
Nucleobases are molecules that make up DNA and RNA that contain genetic information in every living organism on the planet.The order of these bases determines the physical characteristics of man, plants and animals.
In the patent application, it is noted that the SMP will use the nucleotide sequencing unit to actually establish the order of nucleotides in the sample, which will then be checked by the blocker before actually recording it.
From the materials of the patent application:
"This technique represents ways to perform additional useful work in conjunction with the search for blocks.
In particular, the methods represent methods and a device for operating them to use the processing power of the system to determine the nucleic acid sequence in the nucleic acid.
Such a trip will allow using a certain sequence of nucleotides as a basis for the proof-of-work (POW) consensus algorithm, for recording each new block in the chain of blockade."
The combination of blockade technology and genetic sequencing is not entirely new. Some crypto-currency projects, such as genecoin, have suggested how to use the energy-intensive mining process for scientific purposes.
According to Intel, the algorithms for validating the "make it impractical for the attacker or group of attackers to damage or capture the blockade."
Unlike the POW consensus mechanism used by Bitcoin and Ethereum, the new mechanism that is mentioned in the proposed Intel project will be multi-purpose. The emergence of new blocks will simultaneously determine the genetic sequence from the data provided.
Consequently, a new consensus algorithm will be used both for sequence identification and for its subsequent verification. The sequence itself, written in one block, will be used as the basis for solving the consensus algorithm in the next block.