With the continuous creation, sharing and transformation of data resulting from Research and Development in the Life Sciences domain, provenance tracking and valorization of research outputs remain challenges. Tracing biomedical materials and associated data throughout the research life cycle requires tracking materials, methods, transformations, partial results, locations and many other facets. Research is not always carried out in one place; it is usually distributed across several laboratories. Accordingly, research outcomes of various kinds are constantly being produced, recorded, transformed and shared in a decentralized manner. In consequence, the digital continuum is very often lost for practical purposes. Moreover, the value of all the assets produced throughout the research life cycle is neglected because we assign all the value to the product that comes at the very end of the process: the scholarly publication holds all the value. We argue that distributed ledgers, Blockchain, Hyperledger and Ethereum being prominent examples, could be used to preserve the digital continuum of the experimental record as well as provide underlying technology that could help manage the value of all the assets that we produce.
Blockchain and its application in Life Sciences A blokchain is an immutable distributed ledger where transactions are either added or read. In plain English, a distributed ledger (DL) is a network of computers where all maintain identical copies of a database whose state is changed according to agreedupon rules. This technology has been used in domains such as property management, identity management, electronic health records, and fintech; in general, this technology is applicable wherever keeping an accurate record of transformations over valuables living in decentralized settings is needed. Smart contracts are part of the technological