The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), an international policy-framing and technical standards-setting organization, has featured in the second issue of the new journal, Cell Genomics. Ten papers make up this special issue, including a marker paper that provides a high-level overview of the GA4GH organization, deliverables, and strategy for enabling interoperability across the international genomics landscape. Senior members of ICGC ARGO have contributed to this marker paper, including members of the Management Committee and Data Coordination Management Working Group and Ethics and Governance Committee.
ICGC ARGO is a driver project of the GA4GH and closely shares the vision of enabling rapid and responsible genomic and health-related data sharing. GA4GH Driver Projects are real-world genomic data initiatives that help guide development efforts and pilot GA4GH tools, frameworks and standards in their local contexts.
ICGC ARGO has implemented and adopted an array of GA4GH developed tools and policies, including those addressing ethics and regulatory aspects and analysis and quality control tools and standards.
In the marker paper, titled “GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare,” first author Heidi Rehm (vice-chair of GA4GH) and more than 200 co-authors from the GA4GH contributor community present the organization’s strategies for addressing some of the most pressing challenges of the genomic data revolution. The authors dive into the GA4GH toolkit of secure, interoperable technical standards and policy frameworks, their relevance to key domains of research and clinical care, and the organization’s future plans.
“The genomics research community has had a long history of broad international collaboration,” said Rehm. “Today we need to build on that legacy as we move into the era of genomic medicine. The work of GA4GH will help catalyze an unprecedented effort to share data across research and clinical domains and will help ensure that all populations can access the benefits promised by the field”.
You can read the full GA4GH press release here.
*Cover image created by GA4GH Creative Lead, Stephanie Li.