  Genomic data are becoming increasingly valuable as we develop methods to
utilize the information at scale and gain a greater understanding of how
genetic information relates to biological function. Advances in synthetic
biology and the decreased cost of sequencing are increasing the amount of
privately held genomic data. As the quantity and value of private genomic data
grows, so does the incentive to acquire and protect such data, which creates a
need to store and process these data securely. We present an algorithm for the
Secure Interrogation of Genomic DataBases (SIG-DB). The SIG-DB algorithm
enables databases of genomic sequences to be searched with an encrypted query
sequence without revealing the query sequence to the Database Owner or any of
the database sequences to the Querier. SIG-DB is the first application of its
kind to take advantage of locality-sensitive hashing and homomorphic encryption
to allow generalized sequence-to-sequence comparisons of genomic data.
