(opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, a competition backed by the National Institutes of Health that aims to improve privacy and security of genomic data as it moves into the cloud computing realm. Lauter was also the meeting’s keynote speaker.<\/p>\nHer team received the top honor for creating a homomorphic security system, which allows researchers to encrypt data in such a way that it can still be accessed and used. That’s important because normal encryption methods don’t allow the data to be manipulated.<\/p>\n
Her team’s system allows researchers to securely compute what’s called “edit distance.” For example, a scientist may want to compare a genomic sequence that belongs to someone with a disease to a genomic sequence for someone who may or may not have that disease, to figure out the differences between them.<\/p>\n
As cryptographers perfect the systems for securing genomic data, Lauter said the next challenge is to get developers working on ways to make these security systems simple for scientists, doctors and patients to understand.<\/p>\n
“They should be able to look at their screen \u2013 or whatever their user interface is \u2013 and make easy choices about whose data is supposed to be shared with whom,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Posted by Allison Linn Kristin Lauter is solving a problem you may not even know you have: She’s working to keep your most personal data private and secure. We’re not talking about your bank account balance or even your Social Security number. Lauter, a mathematician and cryptographer, is at the forefront of a push to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30766,"featured_media":485007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194472,194487,194489],"tags":[200945,187122,195842,202365,193659,203727],"research-area":[13558],"msr-region":[197900],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-235455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptography","category-privacy","category-security","tag-cloud-security","tag-cryptography","tag-human-genome","tag-kristin-lauter","tag-microsoft-azure","tag-security-and-privacy","msr-research-area-security-privacy-cryptography","msr-region-north-america","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[],"related-projects":[],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","featured_image_thumbnail":"","byline":"","formattedDate":"March 20, 2015","formattedExcerpt":"Posted by Allison Linn Kristin Lauter is solving a problem you may not even know you have: She's working to keep your most personal data private and secure. We're not talking about your bank account balance or even your Social Security number. Lauter, a mathematician…","locale":{"slug":"en_us","name":"English","native":"","english":"English"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30766"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235455"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485010,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235455\/revisions\/485010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"msr-promo-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-promo-type?post=235455"},{"taxonomy":"msr-podcast-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-podcast-series?post=235455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}