What is a Federated Trusted Research Environment (TRE)?

A Federated Trusted Research Environment (TRE) is a secure, decentralized platform that allows researchers to access and analyze sensitive health data where it resides without the data needing to move. Unlike traditional TRE platforms, which centralize data in a single location, federated TREs operate across distributed databases within an organization’s infrastructure, ensuring full compliance with data residency and privacy regulations. This model enhances security, reduces risk, and supports collaborative research by enabling unified data access across locations while maintaining strict control.

Learn more about TRE

5 safes

 

Why lifebit?

The most widely adopted TRE on the market

Fast, specialized data harmonization & product creation

Lifebit is trusted by top pharma and data providers for creating data products at scale. With industry-leading expertise in harmonizing to data models such as OMOP, linking and cataloging data.

Most secure TRE, by federated design

From the pioneers of federation, Lifebit’s TRE uniquely brings analysis and computation to where biomedical data resides.

Only TRE to guarantee results

The only solution for fast, accurate results through a TRE that is proven to handle datasets from over 250M+ patients.

Unmatched Usability and Security 

in One Platform

Achieving both security and usability for biomedical data is crucial to accelerate research and drive meaningful innovation.

Security & Control: Sensitive biomedical data must be stored securely with strictly controlled access to prevent data & privacy breaches. The traditional approach of anonymizing and transferring patient data to a central computing location leads to loss of data control and introduces re-identification risk. The only way to fully secure patient data is to keep data and computation in the organization’s jurisdiction and environment where it can be monitored, ensuring full compliance with data residency and privacy regulations.

Usability & Data interoperability: Biomedical data is often fragmented, unstructured, and challenging to use. Researchers need data products that are fit-for-purpose and ready for analysis, along with a platform that enables joint queries across distributed databases, supporting collaborative research without unnecessary barriers.

Lifebit’s Trusted Research Environment (TRE) stands alone as the only federated data platform purpose-built for life sciences and biomedical data, combining complete usability and data integration with uncompromising security and control.

Learn more about Lifebit’s approach to federation

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Impact
Safeguard your sensitive biomedical data
with Lifebit’s Trusted Research Environment


How it works
Collaborative and secure research, discovery and translation

1. Create Workspaces and invite users

Create Workspaces and invite usersLifebit’s TRE enables data admins to set up and manage Organizations and Workspaces in under 10 minutes, automatically connecting to your cloud and network with top-tier security configurations. Designed and tailored for seamless collaboration, the TRE offers self-service capabilities with customizable settings, role-based access control, integrated communication tools, and scalable solutions, ensuring every team member has the right access and resources.

2. Enable approved data in the Workspace

Data admins in a self-serve, seamless and efficient way connect relevant structured and unstructured data sources to the designated Workspace, ensuring that each research team has access to the exact data they need. Lifebit’s TRE, makes this process fully-self-serve, streamlined and secure for the first time.

3. Access Workspace & create cohorts in 30 seconds

Effortlessly build precise cohorts of participants in a couple of clicks and as little as 30 seconds with Lifebit’s intuitive interface. Easily select participants by specific phenotypes and genotypes for highly targeted analysis. Lifebit’s TRE streamlines cohort creation, making it the fastest and most user-friendly solution for accurate, data-driven research.

4. Perform FAIR analysis to get results

  • Perform biomarker discovery and complex analyses like GWAS, VEP, and PRS in 1-click without technical expertise
  • Bring in your own tools in 1 move via simple URL copy-paste or choose from ready-to-go curated tools
  • Run Nextflow, Cromwell-WDL and containerised pipelines in 3 clicks, leveraging enterprise-grade security, access controls, cost management, and advanced data management.
  • Scale and reproduce workflows with cutting-edge monitoring and controls. FAIR compliance ensures easy cloning and retention of analyses for reproducibility, supporting future inquiries effortlessly and efficiently.
  • Get the full power of JupyterLab, Spark Notebooks, RStudio, from data to results in one-unified experience

5. User exports analysis result, admin approves export requests keeping sensitive data secure

Lifebit's TRE is configured by default to prevent data exports or downloads, keeping patient data securely within your environment. Users can submit export requests for analysis results, which admins review through the Lifebit TRE’s unique and pioneering AirlockTM system, approving or denying based on data sensitivity. This provides the world’s fastest, most compliant and most secure result data export process.

1. Create Workspaces and invite users

Create Workspaces and invite usersLifebit’s TRE enables data admins to set up and manage Organizations and Workspaces in under 10 minutes, automatically connecting to your cloud and network with top-tier security configurations. Designed and tailored for seamless collaboration, the TRE offers self-service capabilities with customizable settings, role-based access control, integrated communication tools, and scalable solutions, ensuring every team member has the right access and resources.

2. Enable approved data in the Workspace

Data admins in a self-serve, seamless and efficient way connect relevant structured and unstructured data sources to the designated Workspace, ensuring that each research team has access to the exact data they need. Lifebit’s TRE, makes this process fully-self-serve, streamlined and secure for the first time.

3. Access Workspace & create cohorts in 30 seconds

Effortlessly build precise cohorts of participants in a couple of clicks and as little as 30 seconds with Lifebit’s intuitive interface. Easily select participants by specific phenotypes and genotypes for highly targeted analysis. Lifebit’s TRE streamlines cohort creation, making it the fastest and most user-friendly solution for accurate, data-driven research.

4. Perform FAIR analysis to get results

  • Perform biomarker discovery and complex analyses like GWAS, VEP, and PRS in 1-click without technical expertise
  • Bring in your own tools in 1 move via simple URL copy-paste or choose from ready-to-go curated tools
  • Run Nextflow, Cromwell-WDL and containerised pipelines in 3 clicks, leveraging enterprise-grade security, access controls, cost management, and advanced data management.
  • Scale and reproduce workflows with cutting-edge monitoring and controls. FAIR compliance ensures easy cloning and retention of analyses for reproducibility, supporting future inquiries effortlessly and efficiently.
  • Get the full power of JupyterLab, Spark Notebooks, RStudio, from data to results in one-unified experience

5. User exports analysis result, admin approves export requests keeping sensitive data secure

Lifebit's TRE is configured by default to prevent data exports or downloads, keeping patient data securely within your environment. Users can submit export requests for analysis results, which admins review through the Lifebit TRE’s unique and pioneering AirlockTM system, approving or denying based on data sensitivity. This provides the world’s fastest, most compliant and most secure result data export process.

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Segment solutions

Lifebit’s Trusted Research Environment offers a broad range 
of use cases across segments

TRE enabling controlled
access to biomedical data




Controlled data access & sharing

Population genomics research

Cohort building & analysis

Data commercialization

TRE for sensitive data
analysis




Controlled data access & sharing

Internal R&D

Cohort building & analysis

TRE for secure and
controlled clinico-genomic and real world data




Controlled data access & sharing

Data commercialization

TRE for storage, computing
and multi-omics data analysis




Multi-omics data analysis

Population genomics research

Controlled data access & sharing

Data commercialization

TRE for multi-modal data
analysis




Multi-omics data analysis

NGS data processing

Target identification & discovery

Patient subtyping stratification

Controlled data access & sharing

The World's Most Secure Platform.

Because Biomedical Data Needs it.

End-to-End Data Governance and Security by Design

based on the most advanced federated architecture in the industry

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Ready to maximize the value of your data?  


Contact Lifebit today and discover how our federated solutions can power your data.

FAQ

What is data federation?

Data federation is a software process that enables numerous databases to work together as one. Using this technology is important for accessing sensitive biomedical health data, as the data remains within appropriate jurisdictional boundaries, while metadata (information about the data) is centralised and searchable.

Data federation is an alternative to a model in which data is moved or duplicated then centrally housed - when data is moved it becomes vulnerable to interception and movement of large datasets is often very costly for researchers. Instead, approved users may access the data via linking technologies such as Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs.

What is Federation Platform-as-a-Service?

A Federation Platform-as-a-Service (FedPaaS) is a secure, cloud-based service model that enables organizations to access and analyze data directly in their own cloud environment—without moving or duplicating the data. Unlike traditional bioinformatics platforms that require data to be transferred to the provider’s cloud account, Lifebit’s FedPaaS keeps data and computation within the organization’s own infrastructure. This model allows organizations to:

    Maintain Full Control:
  1. Data stays in your organization’s cloud account, giving you full ownership and control without data exposure to shared environments.
  2. Ensure Data Residency Compliance: Data remains within your jurisdiction and infrastructure, which is essential for compliance with data residency and privacy regulations.
  3. Optimize Cloud Costs: Since data remains in your cloud account, you avoid the added costs and markups of external cloud storage and compute fees, and you leverage your own provider discounts.
  4. Avoid Costly Data Transfers: If your relationship with the FedPaaS provider changes, there are no egress fees or data migrations needed—your data always remains in your environment.

How does Lifebit guarantee data security?

With Lifebit’s platform patient level data never moves thanks to its enterprise-grade federated architecture that keeps data in-place, and that adheres to the highest global security standards, including FedRamp, GDPR, HIPAA, ISO, and SOC II. We also implement the 5 Safes Framework to ensure strict data residency and secure access, making us the trusted choice for government and regulated industries.

FAQ

What is data federation?

Data federation is a software process that enables numerous databases to work together as one. Using this technology is important for accessing sensitive biomedical health data, as the data remains within appropriate jurisdictional boundaries, while metadata (information about the data) is centralised and searchable.

Data federation is an alternative to a model in which data is moved or duplicated then centrally housed - when data is moved it becomes vulnerable to interception and movement of large datasets is often very costly for researchers. Instead, approved users may access the data via linking technologies such as Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs.

What is Federation Platform-as-a-Service?

A Federation Platform-as-a-Service (FedPaaS) is a secure, cloud-based service model that enables organizations to access and analyze data directly in their own cloud environment—without moving or duplicating the data. Unlike traditional bioinformatics platforms that require data to be transferred to the provider’s cloud account, Lifebit’s FedPaaS keeps data and computation within the organization’s own infrastructure. This model allows organizations to:

    Maintain Full Control:
  1. Data stays in your organization’s cloud account, giving you full ownership and control without data exposure to shared environments.
  2. Ensure Data Residency Compliance: Data remains within your jurisdiction and infrastructure, which is essential for compliance with data residency and privacy regulations.
  3. Optimize Cloud Costs: Since data remains in your cloud account, you avoid the added costs and markups of external cloud storage and compute fees, and you leverage your own provider discounts.
  4. Avoid Costly Data Transfers: If your relationship with the FedPaaS provider changes, there are no egress fees or data migrations needed—your data always remains in your environment.

How does Lifebit guarantee data security?

With Lifebit’s platform patient level data never moves thanks to its enterprise-grade federated architecture that keeps data in-place, and that adheres to the highest global security standards, including FedRamp, GDPR, HIPAA, ISO, and SOC II. We also implement the 5 Safes Framework to ensure strict data residency and secure access, making us the trusted choice for government and regulated industries.