Overview
Are you new to GA4GH? Is this your first time attending a GA4GH Connect meeting?
If so, this 101 guide is for you! GA4GH Connect is our annual working meeting to bring together GA4GH's active contributor's community to advance standards development and objectives of the GA4GH Roadmap. Learn more about who we are and what we do on this page.
GA4GH Strategic Roadmap
We're updating our 2020-2021 Strategic Roadmap, which outlines strategies, standards, and policies for enabling genomic and related health data sharing. The roadmap consists of two parts:
- our strategic community imperatives
- a product roadmap of standards, policies, and projects that each Work Stream will focus on to advance the data-sharing needs of the community
Our 2022 Stretegic Refresh seeks input on three "community imperatives" that emerged as focal areas in 2020 — integration, implementation, and engagement. To share your thoughts on these topics, please complete the community survey, or register to attend a virtual town hall meeting. Our final town hall will be in person at Connect 2022, chaired by Ewan Birney, a member of the Executive Committee.
Helpful Resources
Learn more about GA4GH standards and how they can play a role at every step throughout a learning health system
GA4GH Work Streams
GA4GH Work Streams drive our standards development work. Learn more about our Work Streams and Initiatives below! You will also find brief video updates from each group from our Connect 2021 meeting. For more updates and opportunities to get involved, check out our recent Work Stream Newsletter.
The Clinical & Phenotypic Data Capture (Clin/Pheno) Work Stream aims to support clinical adoption of genomics through information models and standards for describing and exchanging clinical phenotypes.
The Data Security Work Stream aims to help the community keep data protected and ensure that GA4GH standards are developed within a sound risk-management framework.
The Discovery Work Stream aims to facilitate the discovery and utilisation of data sources and services.
The Large Scale Genomics (LSG) Work Stream aims to develop efficient formats to store, access, and analyse sequencing reads, genetic variation, and gene expression information.
The Cloud Work Stream aims to help the genomics and health communities take full advantage of modern cloud environments by bringing algorithms to the data.
The Data Use & Researcher Identities (DURI) Work Stream aims to help the community facilitate and streamline data access processes by standardising researcher identity and data use.
The Genomic Knowledge Standards (GKS) Work Stream aims to enable downstream analysis of genomic data by developing common APIs for exchanging reference genomic information.
The Regulatory & Ethics Work Stream (REWS) aims to create and harmonise forward-looking consent and privacy policies, as well as anticipatory data governance models—building upon the human right to benefit from science.
The Federated Analysis Systems Project (FASP) was established to show that GA4GH APIs, when used in concert, can facilitate real-world, scientific use cases by conducting genomic analysis in the cloud. FASP aims to simulate how a researcher would search, access, and analyze genomic data within the GA4GH ecosystem via end-to-end test scenarios involving multiple Driver Projects.
The GA4GH Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Group aims to examine and address equity, diversity, and inclusion within the GA4GH standards development community.