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Currently, the management and sharing of human genomics data in Australia is siloed within national institutes. The Australian BioCommons aims to remove barriers to access through collaborative projects with research institutes, infrastructure partners, and government agencies. Here we describe the major projects that we are undertaking to advance Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reuseable (FAIR) human genomics data sharing in Australia. The Australian BioCommons provides strategic leadership, project coordination, technical expertise and domain knowledge to these national, multi-institutional and collaborative projects. The Human Genomes Platform Project (HGPP) aims to leverage international best practice technologies and global standards to accelerate FAIR human genomics data sharing in Australia. Involving leading Australian human genomics research organisations, along with national computing infrastructure partners, the HGPP is facilitating the deployment of much needed genomic data sharing infrastructure in Australia. Specifically, the project is investigating which existing international solutions meet Australian requirements with sub-projects aligning to GA4GH and other internationally developed software and standards (Beacon, CILogon, Resource Entitlement Management Software, Federated EGA). The Australian Cardiovascular disease Data Commons (ACDC) will be a comprehensive, secure, scalable, internationally integrated data infrastructure connected to global best practice analysis platforms, to enable the identification of novel insights and predictive biomarkers for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD). Working with members of the CAD Frontiers consortium, the Australian BioCommons has established a pilot data portal, designed a data dictionary, and developed tools and pipelines to facilitate its use. We plan to onboard 18 cohorts with detailed clinical and molecular profiling data, representing 395,000 Australians.

The Human Genomes Platform Project (HGPP) is a nationally-funded collaborative research project aiming to enhance capability for securely and responsibly sharing human genomics research data. National and international connectivity will maximise the utility of these sensitive and valuable assets. The partners on the project represent many of the largest human genome sequencing and analysis efforts in Australia. Currently there is no way to identify virtual cohorts of individuals who have had their genomes sequenced nationally as it is not possible to query across the separate assets from each participating genomics repository. This work aims to implement a system that can be used to identify cohorts of individuals and related data assets across the repositories located at each of the partner institutes (i.e., UMCCR/Australian Genomics, QIMRB, ZERO/CCIA, Garvan and NCI) The initial focus of the virtual cohorts sub-project within the HGPP was a knowledge discovery and recording phase to define: the current state of cross-institutional human genomic data querying in Australia the set of problems that need to be addressed key stakeholders and their (likely) requirements. As such, this document records: the current state of processes and tools for virtual cohort querying national community needs candidate solutions to enable cross-institutional virtual cohort querying recommendations on preferred technology and proposed implementation architecture This document will be used as a reference to plan the pilot for a system that addresses prioritised requirements to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The primary audiences for this document include the HGPP sub-project team, other HGPP stakeholders, and the project reference group.

Aggregating data within the realm of rare diseases and cancers is paramount to gaining statistically significant insights into these diseases. To achieve this, the Australian BioCommons has launched the Human Genome Platforms Project (HGPP) to align and build on global standards such as the Global Alliance for Global Health's Beacon specification. This involves the collaboration of numerous institutes across several sub-projects focused on Data Access Control (DAC) automation, federated identity management and data archiving. Here, we outline our methods and associated challenges with implemented the Beacon version 2 protocol, as well as the Beacon Network and interface.

The Human Genomes Platforms Project (HGPP) aims to leverage best practice technologies and global standards to accelerate Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reuseable (FAIR) human genomics data sharing in Australia. Involving leading Australian human genomics research organisations, along with national computing infrastructure partners, the HGPP is breaking down silos and facilitating the deployment of much needed genomic data sharing infrastructure in Australia. The main project themes are: virtual cohort assembly; data access committee (DAC) automation; federated identity and access management; data and metadata archiving; and documentation, communications and training. We are collaborating with partners internationally to bring best practice technologies to Australia. This includes: Investigating emerging Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) standards including Beacon v2 for virtual cohort assembly and Passports to enable access to data Assessing software including Resource Entitlement Management System (REMS) and Data Use Oversight System (DUOS) to facilitate the Data Access Request and Approval process undertaken by DACs Establishing a national life science authentication service using CILogon Investigating the feasibility of a Federated European Genome-Phenome Archive (FEGA) node in Australia Ensuring all aspects of the project are well-documented as well as hosting webinars and training sessions to ensure outputs are easily adopted by the community Here we introduce the HGPP, an Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and Bioplatforms Australia funded project with in-kind contributions from partner organisations. We describe our achievements to date, outline our upcoming plans for the project and how they will improve the landscape of human genomics data sharing for Australian researchers.

The Human Genomes Platform Project (HGPP) is an Australian nationally-funded collaborative research project aiming to enhance capability for securely and responsibly sharing human genomics research data. National and international connectivity will maximise the utility of these sensitive and valuable assets. A major challenge to human genome data sharing is navigating restrictions on secondary use. Decisions on how and to whom to grant access to data require significant human effort by DAC (Data Access) Committees. This manual approach is slow and burdensome. The aims of the DAC Automation sub-project are to explore a new data access request and approval paradigm driven by automation for the national human genome research community. The initial focus of the DAC Automation sub-project team was a discovery and recording phase to define the current state of data access requests and data sharing agreements within the community, the set of problems that need to be addressed, and key sub-project areas and their (likely) requirements. The DAC Automation Discovery Phase Report (this document) records: the current state of processes and tools for data access requests and data sharing across the community, national community needs, gap analysis, and identification of international projects with potential solution components for piloting in later project stages.This document will be the reference for planning the pilot for a system that addresses prioritised requirements to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The Australian human genome research community has many connections to consortia in Europe and the USA, but retains the need to work independently, according to our own national requirements and guidelines. International readers, particularly those who are outside Europe and the US, may find this discovery report useful for reference in their own human genome research data sharing program efforts.

The Human Genomes Platform Project (HGPP) is an Australian nationally-funded collaborative research project aiming to enhance capability for securely and responsibly sharing human genomics research data. National and international connectivity will maximise the utility of these sensitive and valuable assets. At the heart of any technology platform is identity and access management (IAM): a collection of standards, policies and technologies that enable a platform to determine whether to permit access to a user. In a federated environment such as the Australian/global genomics community, IAM is the glue that enables loosely coupled systems to establish strong trust relationships for the purposes of data sharing. The initial focus of the Federated IAM sub-project team was a discovery and recording phase to define the current state of identity and access management in the community, the set of problems that need to be addressed, and key stakeholders and their (likely) requirements. The Federated IAM Discovery Phase Report (this document) records: the current state of processes and tools for identity and access management across the community, national community needs, gap analysis, and identification of international projects with components suitable to canvas and potentially pilot.This document will be used as a reference to plan the pilot for a system that addresses prioritised requirements to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The Australian human genome research community has many connections to consortia in Europe and the USA, but retains the need to work independently, according to our own national requirements and guidelines. International readers, particularly those who are outside Europe and the US, may find this discovery report useful for reference in their own human genome research data sharing program efforts. &nbsp