GHGA Lecture Series: Thomas Keane (virtual)

  • 19 Mar 2025

Thomas Keane from EMBL-EBI will talk about "The Federated European Genome-Phenome Archive as a global network for sensitive data discovery and access"  at the GHGA lecture series "Advances in Data-Driven Biomedicine" on March 19, 2025.

Biography:

Thomas Keane is the Team Leader for the European Genome Phenome Archive (EGA) and the European Variation Archive (EVA) at EMBL-EBI. He is responsible for strategic planning for EGA and EVA, is a member of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) steering committee, and co-leads the Large-scale Genomics workstream.

Before joining EMBL-EBI as Team Leader in 2016, Thomas led the Sequence Variation Infrastructure group in the Computational Genomics programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. His research interests are in using genomic technologies to understand biological processes, with a particular focus on rodent models for human disease. He is the scientific lead for the Mouse Genomes Project, a collaboration with the Wellcome Sanger Institute. He also holds an honoarary professorship at the University of Nottingham.

Abstract:

The Federated EGA is the primary global resource for discovery and access of sensitive human omics and associated data consented for secondary use, through a network of national human data repositories to accelerate disease research and improve human health.

In the era of rapidly expanding genomics research and technologies, data reuse is more important than ever. This shift prompted the establishment of federated networks for genomic data sharing in Europe. The 1+ Million Genomes (1+MG) Initiative, launched in 2018 to enable access to 1 million sequenced human genomes, provided a cohesive vision to support diverse jurisdictional data sharing requirements. This catalysed the development of multiple projects, including the development and implementation of national-level EGA nodes, coordinated by the Central EGA, and together constituting the Federated EGA Network.

In a rapidly evolving data sharing landscape, FEGA collaborates with European and global initiatives (GA4GH, ELIXIR, 1+ Million Genomes Framework, GDI), demonstrating that a network for transnational discovery of and access to human data is possible. By providing a solution to emerging challenges around secure and efficient management of human omics and associated data, the FEGA Network fosters data reuse, enables reproducibility, and accelerates biomedical research.