GA4GH is an international standards setting body for Genomics and Health. Gen3 aims to follow GA4GH standards whenever possible in order to improve our interoperability with other systems and to simplify the use of a Gen3 Data Commons. Gen3 works closely with GA4GH via two driver projects: first, the Data Commons Framework Services project, which underpins interoperability within the Cancer Research Data Commons and second, through the Biomedical Research Hub, which as a data fabric, enables access to multiple independent data commons containing biomedical data. Some of the areas where we are most active are highlighted below.
The Data Repository Service (DRS) API provides a generic interface to data repositories so data consumers, including workflow systems, can access data in a single, standard way regardless of where it is stored and how it is managed. The DRS standard is incorporated into our fence and IndexD services.
The Passports specification provides a data model for encoding information about the researcher, along with their acquired data access permissions, in a way that cannot be tampered with and enables data access between platforms. Once a platform has issued a visa to your passport you can use that passport to bring your data to yet another platform. Our Fence service supports RAS, which is an NIH implementation of Passports
Data Connect is a standard for discovery and search of biomedical data. It shares metadata about an identifier. The Gen3 Metadata Service (MDS) is very close to this standard and will be fully compatible soon.
The Task Execution Service (TES) API is a standardized schema and API for describing and executing batch execution tasks. Gen3 is working to incorporate this standard into our own workflow execution service.