GA4GH OmicsXchange Podcast: Re-envisioning the Data Access Process

Large-scale sequencing initiatives are generating massive volumes of clinical genomic data that have the potential to inform research into human health and disease. But controlling access to these data is currently a cumbersome endeavor.
Researchers must be properly authorized and their intended use must match the datasets’ consented use. The GA4GH Data Use and Researcher Identities Work Stream aims to create the standards required for efficient access control. The group has now released two standards that help streamline and automate this process: Data Use Ontology and GA4GH Passport Specification.
In this podcast, GA4GH addresses these challenges and the current solutions by speaking with Melanie Courtot and Craig Voisin of the GA4GH DURI Work Stream developed within their teams.
Melanie is a coordinator for metadata standards and the archival infrastructure and technology team at EMBL-EBI. She got involved with GA4GH in 2016 and now co-leads development of the data use ontology standard.
Craig is a software engineer at Google where he leads a team that provides federated access solutions across public clouds. He joined GA4GH in 2018 and co leads development of the GA4GH passport standards.