The GA4GH Cancer Community welcomes new Co-Leads Benjamin Haibe-Kains, Zinaida Perova, and Bernie Pope

18 Jul 2024

Benjamin Haibe-Kains, Zinaida Perova, and Bernie Pope join Salvador Capella-Gutierrez and Romina Royo as Co-Leads of the GA4GH Cancer Community of Interest.

By Jaclyn Estrin, GA4GH Science Writer

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) is pleased to welcome new Co-Leads of its Cancer Community of Interest: Benjamin Haibe-Kains of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and University of Toronto, Zinaida Perova of EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute, and Bernie Pope of The University of Melbourne. Following an open nomination process, Haibe-Kains, Perova, and Pope were selected to join incumbent Co-Leads of the Cancer Community, Salvador Capella-Gutierrez and Romina Royo, both of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, to advance the goals of the Community.

GA4GH Communities of Interest provide a convening point for GA4GH contributors with shared interests and applications in genomic and health-related topics across several focus areas. Established in 2020, the Cancer Community provides a platform for collaborative discussion and knowledge exchange around cancer research, tool development, data sharing, and utilising GA4GH products and standards to enhance oncology care.

Capella-Gutierrez and Royo, along with David Torrents, of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, were the inaugural Co-Leads of the Cancer Community. They have been instrumental in facilitating an open forum of knowledge sharing over their tenure.

Stepping down from his role as Co-Lead, Torrents has had a significant contribution within the Cancer Community, bringing his expertise in computational genomics and his perspective as a former Driver Project Champion of the European-Canadian Cancer Network (EUCANCan) initiative to shape its direction. GA4GH extends its gratitude for his contributions and dedication over the past years, as he passes the torch to the new Co-Leads.

Joining Capella-Gutierrez and Royo, Haibe-Kains, Perova, and Pope bring a rich background of experience to GA4GH. Together, the five Co-Leads are a diverse representation of the cancer genomics landscape, working to amplify the impact of the GA4GH Cancer Community across institutions around the world.

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	Benjamin Haibe-Kains is a Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, a University Health Network hospital, a Professor in the Medical Biophysics department of the University of Toronto, and the Canada Research Chair in Computational Pharmacogenomics. His research aims to improve cancer care through the development of prognostic and predictive models to guide treatment decisions. He is passionate about open science, and the tenets of transparency, reproducibility, and reusability within research to bring people together. Haibe-Kains is interested in driving the development of standards through GA4GH and beyond to share data, code, and software environments, particularly within the complex landscape of bioinformatics, computational biology, and artificial intelligence applied to medicine.
	Zinaida Perova is the Project Lead of the CancerModels.Org — the largest open catalog of harmonised patient-derived cancer models, developed at EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). Her passion for data integration and standardisation underpins the development of the global platform that enables seamless access to patient-derived cancer models for research, drug development, and drug testing, which in turn accelerates an understanding of cancer biology and supports a patient-driven approach to precision medicine. Perova believes in the importance of standardising and reusing scientific data to create sustainable and interoperable solutions that enhance genomic research and human health outcomes.
	Bernie Pope is an Associate Professor at The University of Melbourne, Associate Director of Human Genome Informatics at Australian BioCommons, and Bioinformatics Lead at Melbourne Bioinformatics. He has a research background in cancer bioinformatics and is also working to develop technology and computational techniques to advance human genomics and cancer research in Australia. Pope believes that diversity of representation and equitable access to health benefits are fundamental principles of human -omics programmes. He is looking forward to advancing this work through collaboration among people and institutions in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres.