GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare
Authors: 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, 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
Journal: Cell Genomics (2021)

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.