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Case study · Population genomics
Lifebit powers genomic analysis within Singapore’s TRUST platform
Within TRUST, Singapore’s national research data platform run with Synapxe, Lifebit provides the genomic data platform and low-code analysis tools. The data never leaves the source.
01 · The challenge
Link genomes and health records under national rules
Singapore needed to let researchers and partners, including pharma, analyze genomic and linked health data at scale while meeting PDPA and Ministry of Health security rules.
National-scale genomic and health records data that cannot leave Singapore
PDPA and Ministry of Health security requirements
Many research groups and industry partners on one governed platform
02 · What we deployed
Genomic analysis inside a sovereign national platform
Lifebit’s genomic data platform runs within the Singapore government’s sovereign cloud as part of TRUST. Data, compute, and audit logs stay in Singapore, and Synapxe and the Ministry of Health run governance.
Sovereign by design
No path exists for patient-level data to leave Singapore.
Linked analysis
Genomic, clinical, registry, and longitudinal data are linked securely in one environment.
Governance stays local
Project approvals, accreditation, and audit trails are run by Synapxe and the Ministry of Health.
How it works
From connected data to approved results
Researchers apply through the TRUST portal; a national Data Access Committee reviews and approves every data request.
A trusted third party links and anonymizes datasets to Ministry of Health standards in a secure environment on Singapore’s Government Commercial Cloud.
Approved users analyze in air-gapped workspaces with R, Python, and Spark, and with Lifebit’s low-code tools for genomic and clinical data.
Results leave only through an export request reviewed in the portal; patient-level data stays in Singapore.
What’s in the stack
Lifebit products used: Trusted Research Environment · Trusted Data Factory
03 · The results
Precision medicine for Asian populations
PRECISE-SG100K sequenced 102,202 whole genomes from Singaporeans of Chinese, Malay, and Indian ancestry. Each data release goes into TRUST, the Ministry of Health’s secure research platform, where it is linked to health records, and Lifebit provides the genomic analysis tools inside. Five global pharma companies (Alnylam, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Novo Nordisk, and GSK) have joined the PRECISE-SG100K research consortium and analyze the data through TRUST without downloading it. Lifebit opened a Singapore R&D center with Synapxe in February 2024.
Timeline
About this use case
Population genomics
National precision medicine links genomes with hospital, registry, and lifestyle records so researchers can study disease in a country’s own population, here Chinese, Malay, and Indian Singaporeans. Data access usually means many separate approvals and copies. A single governed platform gives one approval route, keeps data in Singapore, and returns only approved results.
Who uses it here: Researchers from Singapore’s public research organizations, with the National University of Singapore the largest group, plus approved industry partners.
See how population genomics works
