The GA4GH Variation Representation Specification (VRS) was initially released in 2019. Since then, GKS has released two minor version updates, and an upcoming v1.3 release supporting genotypes. With the growing uptake of VRS in knowledge-base and genomic information systems, as well as within larger message structures (e.g. Beacon and Phenopackets), we have identified several key features for enabling use of VRS in these settings.

In this session, we will review these key features and outline the vision for the second major version of VRS. 

The session will be valuable for anyone interested in variation representation integration into system-to-system exchange and genomic databases.