Differentially Private, Federated Learning on Gene Expression Data for Tumour Classification. (2022). Proceedings of 2022 the 12th International Workshop on Computer Science and Engineering. https://doi.org/10.18178/wcse.2022.06.014
Abstract:
Over recent years, machine learning (ML) methods have enabled considerable progress to be
made within a variety of data-rich research domains. Genomics is one prominent field, with ML-based
approaches achieving exciting results in a range of historically difficult tasks. One such area where ML
approaches have achieved particular success is the classification of cancerous tissues using gene expression
data. Despite this success, recent advances share a common issue with many other areas of ML research -
state-of-the-art performance relies upon the aggregation of large training datasets. Many have raised concerns
over the implications such large-scale data aggregation practice has for data privacy, and the nature of
genomic data makes such concerns all the more pertinent within a cancer classification setting. Because of
the sensitivity of such data, strict policies are enacted to protect patient privacy. Whilst currently unavoidable,
such policies are a key roadblock to advances in ML research in this domain. Federated learning (FL) aims to
solve this issue by allowing ML models to be trained on decentralized data. Despite the promise held by this
approach, recent work has demonstrated that FL is not sufficient for fully private training of ML models. The
incorporation of differential privacy (DP) into an FL framework has previously been shown to enable
decentralized model training in a privacy-preserving manner. We introduce a method to incorporate custom
differentially private algorithms directly into federated learning workflows that are not currently
implemented by privacy libraries such as Opacus.
License type:
Publisher Copyright
Funding Info:
This research / project is supported by the A*STAR - Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME) Programmatic Programme
Grant Reference no. : A19E3b0099