JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Decentralized applications (DApps) are computer programs that run on a distributed computing system, such as a blockchain network. Unlike the client-server architecture that powers most internet applications, DApps that are integrated with a blockchain network can execute application logic that is guaranteed to be transparent, verifiable, and immutable. This new paradigm has a number of unique properties that are attractive to the biomedical and healthcare communities. However, instructional resources are scarcely available for biomedical software developers to begin building decentralized applications on a blockchain. Such applications require new ways of thinking about how to build, maintain, and deploy software. This tutorial serves as a complete working prototype of a DApp, motivated by a real use case in biomedical research requiring data privacy. We describe the architecture of a DApp, the implementation details of a smart contract, an example iOS DApp that interacts with the smart contract, and the development tools and libraries necessary to get started. All of the code necessary to recreate the application is publicly available.