GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare.

Heidi L Rehm
Angela J H Page
Lindsay Smith
Jeremy B Adams
Gil Alterovitz
Lawrence J Babb
Maxmillian P Barkley
Michael Baudis
Michael J S Beauvais
Tim Beck
Jacques S Beckmann
Sergi Beltran
David Bernick
Alexander Bernier
James K Bonfield
Tiffany F Boughtwood
Guillaume Bourque
Sarion R Bowers
Anthony J Brookes
Michael Brudno
Matthew H Brush
David Bujold
Tony Burdett
Orion J Buske
Moran N Cabili
Daniel L Cameron
Robert J Carroll
Esmeralda Casas-Silva
Debyani Chakravarty
Bimal P Chaudhari
Shu Hui Chen
J Michael Cherry
Justina Chung
Melissa Cline
Hayley L Clissold
Robert M Cook-Deegan
Mélanie Courtot
Fiona Cunningham
Miro Cupak
Robert M Davies
Danielle Denisko
Megan J Doerr
Lena I Dolman
Edward S Dove
L Jonathan Dursi
Stephanie O M Dyke
James A Eddy
Karen Eilbeck
Kyle P Ellrott
Susan Fairley
Khalid A Fakhro
Helen V Firth
Michael S Fitzsimons
Marc Fiume
Paul Flicek
Ian M Fore
Mallory A Freeberg
Robert R Freimuth
Lauren A Fromont
Jonathan Fuerth
Clara L Gaff
Weiniu Gan
Elena M Ghanaim
David Glazer
Robert C Green
Malachi Griffith
Obi L Griffith
Robert L Grossman
Tudor Groza
Jaime M Guidry Auvil
Roderic Guigó
Dipayan Gupta
Melissa A Haendel
Ada Hamosh
David P Hansen
Reece K Hart
Dean Mitchell Hartley
David Haussler
Rachele M Hendricks-Sturrup
Calvin W L Ho
Ashley E Hobb
Michael M Hoffman
Oliver M Hofmann
Petr Holub
Jacob Shujui Hsu
Jean-Pierre Hubaux
Sarah E Hunt
Ammar Husami
Julius O Jacobsen
Saumya S Jamuar
Elizabeth L Janes
Francis Jeanson
Aina Jené
Amber L Johns
Yann Joly
Steven J M Jones
Alexander Kanitz
Kazuto Kato
Thomas M Keane
Kristina Kekesi-Lafrance
Jerome Kelleher
Giselle Kerry
Seik-Soon Khor
Bartha M Knoppers
Melissa A Konopko
Kenjiro Kosaki
Martin Kuba
Jonathan Lawson
Rasko Leinonen
Stephanie Li
Michael F Lin
Mikael Linden
Xianglin Liu
Isuru Udara Liyanage
Javier Lopez
Anneke M Lucassen
Michael Lukowski
Alice L Mann
John Marshall
Michele Mattioni
Alejandro Metke-Jimenez
Anna Middleton
Richard J Milne
Fruzsina Molnár-Gábor
Nicola Mulder
Monica C Munoz-Torres
Rishi Nag
Hidewaki Nakagawa
Jamal Nasir
Arcadi Navarro
Tristan H Nelson
Ania Niewielska
Amy Nisselle
Jeffrey Niu
Tommi H Nyrönen
Brian D O'Connor
Sabine Oesterle
Soichi Ogishima
Vivian Ota Wang
Laura A D Paglione
Emilio Palumbo
Helen E Parkinson
Anthony A Philippakis
Angel D Pizarro
Andreas Prlic
Jordi Rambla
Augusto Rendon
Renee A Rider
Peter N Robinson, The Jackson Laboratory
Kurt W Rodarmer
Laura Lyman Rodriguez
Alan F Rubin
Manuel Rueda
Gregory A Rushton
Rosalyn S Ryan
Gary I Saunders
Helen Schuilenburg
Torsten Schwede
Serena Scollen
Alexander Senf
Nathan C Sheffield
Neerjah Skantharajah
Albert V Smith
Heidi J Sofia
Dylan Spalding
Amanda B Spurdle
Zornitza Stark
Lincoln D Stein
Makoto Suematsu
Patrick Tan
Jonathan A Tedds
Alastair A Thomson
Adrian Thorogood
Timothy L Tickle
Katsushi Tokunaga
Juha Törnroos
David Torrents
Sean Upchurch
Alfonso Valencia
Roman Valls Guimera
Jessica Vamathevan
Susheel Varma
Danya F Vears
Coby Viner
Craig Voisin
Alex H Wagner
Susan E Wallace
Brian P Walsh
Marc S Williams
Eva C Winkler
Barbara J Wold
Grant M Wood
J Patrick Woolley
Chisato Yamasaki
Andrew D Yates
Christina K Yung
Lyndon J Zass
Ksenia Zaytseva
Junjun Zhang
Peter Goodhand
Kathryn North
Ewan Birney

Abstract

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) aims to accelerate biomedical advances by enabling the responsible sharing of clinical and genomic data through both harmonized data aggregation and federated approaches. The decreasing cost of genomic sequencing (along with other genome-wide molecular assays) and increasing evidence of its clinical utility will soon drive the generation of sequence data from tens of millions of humans, with increasing levels of diversity. In this perspective, we present the GA4GH strategies for addressing the major challenges of this data revolution. We describe the GA4GH organization, which is fueled by the development efforts of eight Work Streams and informed by the needs of 24 Driver Projects and other key stakeholders. We present the GA4GH suite of secure, interoperable technical standards and policy frameworks and review the current status of standards, their relevance to key domains of research and clinical care, and future plans of GA4GH. Broad international participation in building, adopting, and deploying GA4GH standards and frameworks will catalyze an unprecedented effort in data sharing that will be critical to advancing genomic medicine and ensuring that all populations can access its benefits.