Welcome to the GA4GH news site

13 Oct 2016

We at the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health are serious about our mission of transforming medicine and improving human health through data sharing. Since our founding in 2013, GA4GH has expanded the global conversation about genomics and health in many ways. We convene stakeholders with expertise in genomics, security, regulations and ethics, informatics, computing, and clinical genetics.

We at the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health are serious about our mission of transforming medicine and improving human health through data sharing. Since our founding in 2013, GA4GH has expanded the global conversation about genomics and health in many ways. We convene stakeholders with expertise in genomics, security, regulations and ethics, informatics, computing, and clinical genetics. We serve as a clearinghouse of ideas, best practices, and new learning in the genomic data sharing space. Much of this happens through weekly conference calls, quarterly newsletters, and semi-annual meetings, such as next week’s 4th Plenary.

But we can do better. GA4GH members are churning out new advances toward responsible data sharing at a rapid clip. And the momentum is building. GA4GH aims to bring in more international expertise, engage with key initiatives, and put our existing tools to use in immediate real-world settings. In order to keep you in the loop on our activities and those of the community at large, we have revamped the News & Events section of our website and turned it into a regular news feed that will bring you dispatches from the “front lines of genomic data sharing.”

This site will offer news, stories, and ideas in genomic data sharing — work that is both internal and external to GA4GH. We will bring you engaging stories that put the technical work into context, demonstrate the great value of data sharing for improving human health, and help spread the word about new tools and resources. It will continue to be your go-to landing page for all of the GA4GH communications you’ve come to rely on, including archived newsletters, event information, press releases, journal articles, and media hits. But it will also now include a revved up news feed offering feature stories and interviews that highlight data sharing projects within the community, announce new GA4GH work products, break down the technical details in newly released academic papers, or introduce you to active GA4GH members and field leaders.

These stories will primarily be text-based and written by our in-house communications team, but we will also welcome guest posts from the community and will eventually venture into the world of multimedia through podcasting and video interviews. We hope you will check in on us regularly and think of this site as a central meeting ground where you can engage with the work of your fellow community members and potential future collaborators in the genomic data-sharing space. As always, we hope you will get involved! If you have something to say about one of our stories, share your comments (but take a look at our comments policy first, to come soon). If you know of a project that demands to be featured, let us know. And if you’d like to see any changes, tell us that, too — in true GA4GH fashion, we welcome your input as we move from the alpha to the beta phase of this new “tool.”