CINECA Poster - GA4GH 9th Plenary
Poster title
CINECA: Developing a cloud-based federated infrastructure for international human data sharing and analysis
Download THE CINECA poster - GA4GH 9th plenary
Authors
Leslie Glass (EMBL-EBI), Mamana Mbiyavanga (UCT), Thomas Keane (EMBL-EBI), Lauren Fromont (CRG), David Bujold (McGill Univ), Nicky Mulder (UCT), Jonathan Dursi (UHN), CINECA consortium members (BBMRI-ERIC, CRG, Clinicageno, EMC, EMBL-EBI, HMGU, CSC, MU, INSERM, McGill, SIB, SFU, UHN, The Hyve, UMCG, HES-SO, UCT, UTARTU)
Poster Description
National healthcare initiatives and human cohort studies are generating large biomolecular datasets. Improving access to this data for researchers and clinicians is essential for personalised medicine. It is evident that the current model of data access and distribution for localised analysis is no longer pragmatic. Issues such as cohort data size and scale, lack of data harmonisation and interoperability, bespoke data access protocols, and jurisdictional regulations limiting the transfer of data across borders, mean that federated access models are more appropriate.
The aim of CINECA (Common Infrastructure for National Cohorts in Europe, Canada, and Africa) is to deliver a federated cloud-based infrastructure for discovery of human genetic and phenotypic data, facilitating secure international data access and analysis, for research and clinical applications. We have assembled a virtual cohort of 1.4 million individuals from population, longitudinal and disease studies hosted on international initiatives such as CanDIG, H3Africa, and the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA). Implementing open standards across the network is a crucial aspect of the project.
In collaboration with other GA4GH-associated projects, CINECA is developing infrastructure which will permit effective use of widely-dispersed data increasing the size and quality of datasets available for disease research. In alignment with community standards, using standardised interfaces, data analysis will be federated and migrated to the data, respecting data access restrictions.
Key project challenges include implementing standardised methods for federated search and discovery, interoperable authentication and authorisation infrastructure, harmonising metadata, performing meaningful analyses in a variety of environments, and a trans-national harmonised ELSI framework enabling data-sharing. Solutions CINECA is adopting from the Discovery Work Stream include the Data Connect and Beacon v2 API, while from the DURI and Data Security Work Streams the GA4GH Passports, AAI and DUO are being utilised.
