Benjamin Berk, Chief Clinical Informatics Officer at CareEvolution, joins Mónica Muñoz Torres (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus), as Co-Lead of the Clin/Pheno Work Stream. With a combined medical, information technology, and business background, Berk has a passion for improving healthcare systems and patient health outcomes. Bringing his expertise in health information exchange and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) data for research to Clin/Pheno, Berk will collaborate with Muñoz Torres to standardise the way clinicians and researchers describe, store, and exchange data about phenotypes (observable traits), family health history, and clinical findings. He is one of the Product Leads for the Pedigree standard for family health history, inclusive of large and complex families, and for the new Cross-Work-Stream Large Language Model (LLM) Interest Group.

“This is an exciting time as clinical data accessibility is maturing, and emerging tools in machine learning and LLMs are opening up new avenues for aggregation and analysis. GA4GH is in a unique position to bridge the worlds of phenotypic and genotypic data to advance research, support medicine, and improve the lives of patients across the globe.” — Benjamin Berk, Clinical & Phenotypic Data Capture Work Stream Co-Lead

Venkat Malladi, a Senior Scientist at Microsoft, joins Brian O’Connor (Nimbus Informatics) as a Co-Lead of the Cloud Work Stream. Together they will work to standardise ways to securely define, share, and execute portable workflows across cloud environments. Malladi has been a strong contributor of the Cloud Work Stream, supporting the development of the Task Execution Service (TES), which standardises the orchestration of complex analyses across different computing environments, and the Workflow Execution Service (WES), a protocol for running genomic data analysis in multiple cloud environments. With an interest in driving adoption of open-source standards, Malladi focuses on scaling interoperable bioinformatics tools, developing improvements to cloud-based workflows, and advancing innovation in computational methods in genomics, bioinformatics, and biology.

“I’m excited to Co-Lead the Cloud Work Stream and lead the discussion on how the community can get access to data and compute resources, such as virtual machines or serverless functions, that can be used to run workloads. One of my goals is to showcase how to use Cloud Work Stream and other GA4GH APIs to help democratise access to data and analysis across the world.” — Venkat Malladi, Cloud Work Stream Co-Lead

“I’m thrilled to step into the role of Co-Lead for the Data Security Work Stream and contribute to safeguarding genomic data on a global scale. Advancing standards like Passports and AAI is an exciting opportunity to build trust, enable secure data sharing, and empower researchers to find, share, and access data easily.” — Tom Conner, Data Security Work Stream Co-Lead

Vasiliki Rahimzadeh is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Baylor College of Medicine. She explores the ethical, legal, and social issues pertaining to health data sharing in order to cultivate responsible data governance systems that foster the full potential of science. Rahimzadeh has been an active member of REWS since its earliest days, serving as one of the Product Co-Leads of the Ethical Provenance Toolkit, which provides standardised management guidance across the lifecycle of health data; the Data Access Committee Review Standards (DACReS) Toolkit, which offers guidance and best practices for Data Access Committees when reviewing data access requests; and the Model Data Access Agreement Clauses, an open access, publicly available policy tool to standardise the way data is accessed and shared.

“I am deeply humbled by the opportunity to work with my colleagues to co-lead REWS, which was such a transformative part of my training as a PhD student, postdoctoral fellow, and now faculty. I envision a fully integrated REWS within the GA4GH community that continues to serve as the premier international forum for ethics research around genomic data sharing, policy development, and collaboration. Central to this vision is strengthening Cross-Work-Stream partnerships and initiatives which prioritise three distinct types of REWS work: (1) anticipatory and exploratory research on emerging ethical issues in genomic data sharing; (2) real-time solution building and policy development to address ethical issues as they emerge for technical Work Streams; and (3) the evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of ELSI [Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications] tools, ensuring their translation and impact across the GA4GH organisation.” — Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, Regulatory & Ethics Work Stream Co-Lead

Ma’n H. Zawati, an Associate Professor at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine, is also the Research Director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy, housed within McGill’s Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Institute of Genomic Medicine, one of GA4GH’s five Host Institutions. His interdisciplinary research addresses the legal, ethical, and policy considerations related to genomics and health research, data sharing, and clinical care. Zawati has been a longstanding member of REWS, contributing to several key publications, including “GA4GH response to WHO draft principles for human genome access, use, and sharing”; “The Key Features of a Genetic Nondiscrimination Policy: A Delphi Consensus Statement”; “Letter: Relearning the 3 R’s? Reinterpretation, recontact, and return of genetic variants”; and “Consent Processes for Mobile App Mediated Research: Systematic Review”.

“It is really a pleasure to join REWS as Co-Lead. With the Victor Philip Dahdaleh Institute of Genomic Medicine being one of GA4GH’s Host Institutions, I believe this will solidify our collaborations for years to come. I join an exceptional Work Stream that has already advanced the global landscape of genomic research by setting standards, promoting interoperability, ensuring inclusivity, and fostering ethical data sharing practices. To build on these achievements, one of my goals as REWS Co-Lead would be to meaningfully engage with low and middle income countries (LMIC) on data governance tools and products. LMICs face the greatest health challenges but are still underrepresented in genomic and health research. Such efforts will build local research capacity, foster more inclusive global health research, and advance scientific progress worldwide in an equitable manner. There’s so much exciting work ahead of us!” — Ma’n H. Zawati, Regulatory & Ethics Work Stream Co-Lead