GA4GH Community Spotlight: Elizabeth Janes

2 Jul 2021

This GA4GH Community Spotlight is the second in a monthly series featuring individuals from across GA4GH. This month, we are speaking with Elizabeth Janes a GA4GH Co-op apart of our Secretariat of professional staff.

Elizabeth Janes joined GA4GH as a Software Developer in May 2021 and is working with the Cloud work stream. She is a University of Waterloo co-op student studying Biomedical Engineering and is excited about how technology can be used to improve healthcare, particularly in the areas of genetics and bioinformatics.

What current projects are you working on?

In my role, I contribute to developing software for the Cloud work stream, which is working to improve cloud-based data management. I am currently working towards implementing a web application for the GA4GH Starter Kit. Specifically, this involves developing a user interface for the Data Repository Service (DRS) Starter Kit, which will allow users to quickly and easily view and update DRS data.

What is your favourite thing about the GA4GH Community and why?

My favourite thing about the GA4GH Community is the opportunity it provides to contribute to developing standards that can benefit researchers worldwide in addressing issues that impact healthcare. Genomics research is an area that has a significant and meaningful impact on healthcare and will continue to do so in the future. As such, it is exciting to be a part of this community which is working towards advancing genomics research and data analysis with researchers around the world.

How do you think genomic data standards will shape the world in 20 years? 

In 20 years, I think that genomic data standards will allow for significant progress in the way that genomic data is shared and analyzed. This will allow for advancement in our understanding of genomics and the clinical treatments that are available, as well as the development of personalized medicine. Additionally, genomic data standards will improve the way genomic data is shared which will help to ensure that everyone can benefit from genomics research.