Expert's Take: The Case For Legitimacy In Decentralized Science With Innovative Bioresearch CEO

2024 was the year when blockchain technology's true power shone in many ways as several traditional industries entered the space, and among the segments that bloomed from the convergence of blockchain and centuries-old industries is decentralized science (DeSci).

The emerging blockchain sub-sector grabbed the attention of the broader industry due to the novel idea of combining the power of blockchain to move scientific research further for the greater good.

In an exclusive with International Business Times, U.S.-born Italian research scientist Dr. Jonathan Fior, the founder, CEO, and chief scientific officer at biotech company dedicated to applying blockchain tech to scientific research Innovative Bioresearch Ltd (INNBC), delved into the rise of DeSci and the issue on legitimacy – a key point of discussion in the segment.

Why Blockchain Is Essential For Science

Fior said among the most common question the company gets is, "Why do we need blockchain technology in science?" The question is crucial for people within the scientific realm, especially since this specific industry is big on use cases.

Among the most notable use cases for science in the blockchain space is funding. With the technology, scientific projects can create digital assets to fund their projects. The tokens will then be exchanged on a cryptocurrency market or for other digital currencies.

On the other hand, there is a reasonable argument for this method – scientific projects don't really need blockchain to raise funds for their experiments. Aside from crowdfunding, there are also public grants available for eligible research.

So what makes blockchain unique from other methods for scientific research funding? For Fior, blockchain's novelty itself makes it unique from other technologies that try to implement data replication strategies. Furthermore, there's the matter on trust.

"Blockchain is all about establishing trust in a final and total sense. It is an environment with 'hard' trust, processing a chain made up of small amounts of data. Alternative technologies have been able to scale the performance but no the consensus mechanism," Fior explained.

Unlike alternatives that cannot completely eliminate the presence of "Byzantine failures," wherein malicious nodes, if they want, can prevent progress by acting as a coordinator to start a new round of the protocol then disappear repeatedly, blockchain makes it "prohibitively expensive" to perform such attacks.

"The 'hard trust' scenario of the blockchain consensus mechanism provides an ideal application for creating a permanent record of biomedical data," Fior said.

In the past, blockchain was used only to store a hash – a digital fingerprint – of data. To improve the process of verifying biomedical data, Innovative Bioresearch developed an application for storing the whole raw data onchain, called the INNBC dApp.

INNBC

Through the dApp, recording data on a blockchain provides a temporal and permanent track of its creation, allowing INNBC to identify subsequent falsifications and revisions. The dApp can be used to generate a proof of authorship, wherein research scientists who are performing groundbreaking research and who want to protect their data from being stolen have a platform to easily store data onchain without the need for prior coding knowledge.

Basically, the INNBC dApp is "an application developed by a research scientist for research scientists." Notably, the INNBC team produced a peer-reviewed study discussing the dApp's real-world use, which was published in the prestigious "BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making," part of the Springer-Nature network, recognized as a leading publisher of the world's top scientific journals.

Innovative Bioresearch is the first ever blockchain project to bring biomedical research into the blockchain space in 2016, and the INNBC dApp's journal publication changed the crypto and blockchain space entirely, introducing DeSci to the scientific community.

In the last few years, several projects have categorized themselves under decentralized science and floated narratives around building public infrastructure for scientific research funding and using blockchain technology to provide access to top-notch scientific knowledge.

However, the issue of legitimacy has been a point of contention in the industry, and as more DeSci-tagged projects emerge, the urgency for establishing clear definitions has only heightened.

Why a Line Should Be Drawn in Legitimate DeSci

Fior noted that there is a fine line between genuine DeSci projects and those that claim to be under the rising segment.

"Science is science. We follow the same principles," he pointed out. According to Fior, the following factors are to be considered when gauging the legitimacy of a DeSci project as established by the core of scientific research:

• The "scientific method" – This is the process of objectively establishing facts through rigorous testing and investigation; it is what ultimately defines "legitimate science."
• Research process – Scientists who seek validation for their work are required to describe their work in sufficient detail in a scientific article and submit the article for publication in a reputed peer-reviewed scientific journal.
• Journal process – Journal editors determine the quality of research by submitting the data to several scientific experts in the same field. The scientists, called "peers," thoroughly examine the researcher's work through a multi-step procedure that includes repeated revisions of the paper by the author until the peer reviewers' issues or concerns are resolved and the study is approved for publication

As noted above, the process toward getting legitimized for a scientific study or project can be very lengthy. On the other hand, it is what allows scientists to dramatically improve their work while adhering to the scientific method.

"Accordingly, work that has been published in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals can be defined as legitimate decentralized science. While work that has never been checked for correctness by peer reviews is not considered legit science by the scientific community," Fior said.

He went on to note that if a certain blockchain or crypto project around science is not published, it cannot be called science. "Any project calling themselves 'DeSci' and presenting just a token and some 'DeSci narratives' without having their data or model undergo rigorous peer review and produce publications in reputable medical journals is not legitimate decentralized science," he reiterated.

The Future of DeSci in a Fast-Evolving Market

DeSci is not as big as other segments in the blockchain space, but it is already making significant waves, especially as more people discover the brilliant convergence of blockchain and scientific studies.

INNBC believes all branches of science, from computer science to medical science, will benefit from DeSci, especially as blockchain evolves and more use cases are discovered. Still, funding for innovative research through blockchain "will be the most disruptive factor in DeSci," Fior said.

While grants are structured to basically "punish" truly innovative research, DeSci can accelerate innovation through digital asset funding. "DeSci is not a centralized system to dictate innovation with a relatively shortsighted mindset but a community of users that will embrace the funding of innovative ideas, finding what has been lost in TradSci (traditional science), scientific curiosity," Fior said.

He also expects a spike in computer science applications, especially artificial intelligence for processing biomedical data. Fior's projection isn't far from taking place, given the significant rise in projects around AI and blockchain since last year.

In terms of medical science benefiting from blockchain technology, INNBC proved that it is possible. Aside from developing a blockchain-based biomedical data storage dApp, the company also became the first to fund, perform, and publish HIV cure research, producing in vivo data on SupT1 cells as a decoy target for the HIV virus, in a study published in the 5.2 impact factor medical journal "Vaccines."

The Role Innovative Bioresearch Plays in Pushing DeSci Forward

INNBC is drawing the line between "pseudoscience" and legitimate science within the blockchain space. Over the years, the project has attracted a community that was formed after Innovative Bioresearch embraced the cryptocurrency sector's culture of memes and engagement.

The company produced its own meme based on the Homelander character of cult TV series "The Boys" and launched the Solana-based Innovative Bioresearch Vought (INNBCV) via the daos.fun platform.

"INNBCV is done being persecuted for producing actual peer-reviewed studies published in the world's most important scientific journals; INNBCV is done apologizing for producing real science; save DeSci from pseudoscience," the project wrote in a statement during its token's launch.

Fior noted that INNBCV stands out from the rest of the many tokens in the crypto space because "it is based on a true story." He noted how people loved the sincerity and reality around the memecoin and they understood the importance of standing for legitimate, peer-reviewed science.

INNBC continues to push for legitimate blockchain-science projects and advocates for broader DeSci understanding. "We believe that it is by entertaining people with a simple, crystal clear message and not boring them with walls of scientific text that it is possible to red-pill them into science," Fior noted.

With the goal of developing SupT1 cell therapy for HIV to hopefully provide a cure for the 39 million HIV seropositive people worldwide, the project is on a mission to "empower a collectivity to solve an issue for the collectivity."