3874 results for "*geneti*"

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• Genome and gene analysis of gastrointestinal cancer and elucidation of its clinicopathological significance

  Cancer develops through the accumulation of genetic and epigenetic aberrations. To identify sequential molecular alterations that occur during the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we molecularly compared 52 early and 108 overt HCC samples by genome sequencing. Gene mutations in the p53/RB1 pathway, WNT pathway, MLLs, SWI/SNF complexes, and AKT/PI3K pathway were common in HCC. In the early phase of all entities, TERT was the most frequently upregulated gene owing to diverse mechanisms. Despite frequent somatic mutations in driver genes, including CTNNB1 and TP53, early HCC was a separate molecular entity from overt HCC as each had a distinct expression profile. Notably, WNT target genes were not activated in early HCC, regardless of CTNNB1 mutation status, because ?-catenin did not translocate into the nucleus due to the E-Cadherin/?-catenin complex at the membrane. Conversely, WNT targets were definitively upregulated in overt HCC with CTNNB1 mutation associated with downregulation of CDH1 and hypomethylation of CpG islands in the target genes. Similarly, cell cycle genes downstream of the p53/RB pathway were upregulated only in overt HCC with TP53 and/or RB1 gene mutations associated with chromosomal deletion of 4q and/or 16q. Differing from the expression profile, HCC was epigenetically distinguished into four subclasses: normal-like methylation, global-hypomethylation (favorable prognosis), stem-like methylation (poor prognosis), and CpG island methylation. These methylation statuses were globally maintained through HCC progression. Taken together, additional molecular events besides driver gene mutations cooperatively contribute to transcriptional activation of downstream targets as HCC progresses, according to the methylation status of the associated genes.

  Study JGAS000233

• Cancer genomics for elucidation of molecular mechanisms of carcinogenecis and progression in lung cancer

  The objective of this project is to analyze genomic aberrations and gene expression changes such as mutations, deletions, amplifications, and hypermethylation in human lung cancer cells at the somatic cell level, and to contrast these with clinicopathological information to elucidate the molecular mechanisms and characteristics of lung cancer development and progression at the genetic level.

  Study JGAS000756

• DNA demethylation is associated with malignant progression of low-grade gliomas

  To elucidate the mechanisms of tumor progression is key to discovering strategies for treating patients with lower-grade glioma. Thus to characterize the changes in the molecular profile during malignant progression, we performed methylation array analysis (122 tumors), whole-exome sequencing (36 tumors and matched normal samples), and RNA sequencing (31 tumors). This cohort included 24 matched pairs of initial lower-grade gliomas and recurrent tumors, most of which showed malignant progression when they recurred. Nearly half of IDH-mutant glioblastomas that had progressed from lower-grade gliomas exhibited characteristic partial DNA demethylation in previously methylated genomic regions of their corresponding initial tumors, which had the glioma CpG island methylator phenotype (G-CIMP). In these glioblastomas, cell cycle-related genes were upregulated, RB and PI3K-AKT pathway genes were frequently altered. Notably, bioinformatics analysis revealed that late-replicating domain was significantly enriched in the demethylated regions that were mostly located in non-regulatory regions, suggesting that the loss of DNA methylation during malignant transformation may involve mainly passive demethylation due to a delay in maintenance of methylation during accelerated cell division. Nonetheless, a limited number of genes including IGF2BP3, which potentially drives cell proliferation, were presumed to be upregulated due to demethylation of their promoter. Thus, cell proliferation was further promoted by passive demethylation in the promoter region of these oncogenic genes. Our data indicated that demethylation of the G-CIMP profile found in a subset of recurrent gliomas reflects accelerated cell divisions accompanied by malignant transformation. Oncogenic genes activated by such epigenetic change represent potential therapeutic targets.

  Study JGAS000146

• Expression profiling of Gorlin iPSCs in the osteoblast induction culture

  In this study, we utilized human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based models of the two diseases, named Gorlin syndrome and McCune Albright synfrome, to understand the roles of Hh signaling in osteogenesis, especially in mineralization. To examine which signaling pathways and genetic networks were affected by Gorlin syndrome-associated PTCH1 mutation in human osteoblastogenesis, we performed RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis in the osteoblast induction culture of WT and Gorlin iPSCs.

  Study JGAS000218

• Gene expression of human Th17 cells before and after activation

  Although gene expression of human Th17 clones has been studies, to date, molecular mechanisms for human Th17 development remain unclear. We have analyzed gene expression of human Th17 cells before and after activation. Th17-cell clones from peripheral blood CD4 T cells cultured with LPS-stimulated dendritic cells derived from monocytes stimulated by TNF were established by a limited dilution method. One of the Th17 clones was proliferated significantly, and high percentages (>70%) of Th17 cells in the cultured cells were maintained by addition of monocytes, IL-1b, and IL-15. CD161+CXCR3- cells (CD161+Th17) in the cultures were sorted and purified up to approximately 97% of IL-17-producing cells after treatment with PMA/ionomycin. Furthermore, these cells were treated with TCR-stimuli, IL-1b, and IL-23 for 2 days, and IL-17-producing Th17 cells (active-Th17) detected by IL-17-catch-up antibodies were sorted. Total RNA sampled from 1x 106 CD161+Th17, active-Th17, na?ve CD4 T cells, or CXCR3+ Th1 cells from combined CD4 T and dendritic cell cultures was used for SAGE. SAGE was performed by using SOLID TM SAGETM kit with barcoding adaptor molecules (Applied Biosystems). DNA sequence was analyzed by using AB5500 Genetic Analyzer (Applied Biosystems), and gene expression was analyzed by using SOLID? SAGETM software (Applied Biosystems). Our data shows high levels of IL-17A-mRNA expression by active-Th17; however, but only slight expression by CD161+Th17. Therefore, the data could provide alteration of gene expression by Th17 cells before and after stimulation.

  Study JGAS000005

• Na?ve Treg-specific genomic DNA hypomethylation for autoimmune disease susceptibility

  Naturally occurring regulatory T (Treg) cells, which are specifically expressing the transcription factor FOXP3, CD25 and CTLA-4, are indispensable for the maintenance of immunological self-tolerance and homeostasis. Mutations of the FOXP3, CD25 and CTLA4 genes compromise the function of natural FOXP3+CD25+CD4+ Treg cells and cause severe autoimmune diseases showing Mendelian inheritance. Also, altered Treg-specific epigenetic changes, such as DNA hypomethylation and enhancer activation, impair the expression of these molecules in developing Treg cells, causing autoimmune diseases. It is obscure, however, whether Treg cells significantly contribute to the development of polygenic common autoimmune diseases (such as type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis), which afflict ~10% of the population. Recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) of common autoimmune diseases has revealed many autoimmune disease-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in enhancer regions of immune cells, for example, in non-coding regions of T cell activation-associated genes such as CD25 and CTLA4. These findings, especially the involvement of common T-cell genes in the functions of both Treg cells and effector T cells, prompt one to ask whether autoimmune disease-associated causative SNPs impact on the functions of either disease-causing effector T cells or disease-suppressing Treg cells. Here, we have explored epigenetic profiles of human Treg and conventional T (Tconv) cells in na?ve or activated states, and found that autoimmune disease-associated SNPs are predominantly enriched in Treg-specific CpG demethylated regions (Treg-DRs), which were mostly included in Treg-specific super-enhancers. Treg-DRs are developmentally established in na?ve Treg cells before antigenic stimulation, distinct from activation-induced CpG hypomethylation in Treg or Tconv cells, and highly associated with Treg cell-specific transcriptional and epigenetic changes. Taken together, genetic variants affecting endogenous development of natural Treg cells and their Treg-intrinsic functions are causative of common autoimmune diseases, indicating natural Treg cells as a key target for their treatment and prevention.

  Study JGAS000145

• Response to Hepatitis B vaccine

  Approximately 5-10% of individuals, who are vaccinated with a hepatitis B (HB) vaccine designed based on the HBV genotype C, fail to acquire protective levels of antibodies. Host genetic factors behind low immune response to the HB vaccine were investigated by GWAS and HLA association tests. GWAS and HLA association tests were carried out using a total of 1,193 Japanese individuals including 107 low responders (HBsAb ?10 mIU/mL), 351 intermediate responders (10 mIU/mL< HBsAb <100 mIU/mL), and 735 high responders (HBsAb ?100 mIU/mL). Classical HLA class II alleles were statistically imputed using the genome-wide SNP typing data. GWAS identified independent associations of HLA-DRB1-DQB1 haplotypes, HLA-DPB1 alleles and BTNL2 gene with immune response to the HB vaccine designed based on the HBV genotype C. Five HLA-DRB1-DQB1 haplotypes and two DPB1 alleles showed significant associations with response to the HB vaccine in a comparison of three groups of 1,193 HB vaccinated individuals. When frequencies of DRB1-DQB1 haplotypes and DPB1 alleles were compared between low immune responders and HBV patients, significant associations were identified for three DRB1-DQB1 haplotypes, and no association was identified for any of DPB1 alleles. In contrast, no association for DRB1-DQB1 haplotypes and DPB1 alleles was identified in a comparison between high immune responders and healthy individuals. The findings in this study clearly show the importance of HLA-DR-DQ (i.e. recognition of a HB vaccine related HBsAg by specific DR-DQ haplotypes) and BTNL2 molecules (i.e. high immune response to the HB vaccine) for response to a HB vaccine designed based on the HBV genotype C.

  Study JGAS000341

• Phylogenetic analysis of paired breast carcinomas identifies genetic events associated with clonal recurrence and invasive progression

  Development of ipsilateral breast carcinoma following diagnosis of breast ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) has been assumed to represent recurrence of the primary tumour. However, this may not be the case and it is important to know how often recurrences are new tumours. Ipsilateral primary-recurrence pairs (n=78) were sequenced to test their clonal relatedness. Shared genetic events were identified from whole exome sequencing (n=54 pairs) using haplotype-specific copy number and phylogenetic analysis. The remaining pairs were sequenced by a targeted panel or low-coverage whole genome sequencing. We included 32 non-recurrent DCIS to compare recurrent and non-recurrent disease. We found that 7% of DCIS recurrences were non-clonal by whole exome sequencing, indicative of a new breast carcinoma. Lower resolution methods detected a higher non-clonality rate (29%). Comparing primary DCIS with their recurrences found that evolution of DCIS to invasive disease was associated with increased ploidy and copy number events. TP53 mutations were enriched in DCIS with clonal recurrence compared with non-recurrent DCIS. Our results verify that de novo “recurrent tumours” of independent origin occur in patients who may be at high risk. (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.05.19.594731v2.full)

  Study EGAS50000001298

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  Documentation discovery/metadata/search-box

• Privacy Notice for the Account User

  Privacy Notice for EGA User Account This Privacy Notice explains what personal data is collected by the specific service you are requesting, for what purposes, how it is processed, and how we keep it secure. Note that this service collects personal data directly provided by the user, and also collects personal data from users that is provided by other organisations. 1. Who controls your personal data and how to contact us? European Genome- Phenome Archive - EGA offers a service for permanent archiving and sharing of all types of personally identifiable genetic and phenotypic data resulting from biomedical research projects, jointly managed by European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). EMBL-EBI and CRG represent joint Data Controllers’ of processing of your personal data. They and their Data protection officers may be contacted for data protection queries and for exercising your rights under Section 8. You may contact EMBL-EBI, represented by dr. Thomas Keane, by: email at: tk2@ebi.ac.uk or post at EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Genome Campus, CB10 1SD Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, UK. EMBL’s Data Protection Officer may be contacted by: telephone at +49 6221 387-8590, email at dpo@embl.org, or post at EMBL Heidelberg, Data protection officer, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. You may contact CRG, whose EGA team is represented by dr. Jordi Rambla de Argila, by: email at jordi.rambla@crg.eu, or post at Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Dr.Aiguader 88, PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. CRG Data protection officer may be contacted by: email at dpo@crg.eu post at Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), C/ Dr. Aiguader, 88, PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. 2. Which is the lawful basis for processing personal data? We process your personal data on the grounds of important public interest. For monitoring your activities on the website, we process your personal data on the grounds of important public interest. Such legal basis is found in Article 5(1)(a) of EMBL Internal Policy No 68 on General Data Protection (hereinafter IP 68), which is equivalent to Article 6 (1)(e) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter GDPR) and upon which personal data are processed for the achievement of the aims laid down in 1973 agreement establishing EMBL, such as the promotion of the cooperation in the fundamental research, in the development of advanced instrumentation and in advanced teaching in molecular biology and dissemination of information. 3. What personal data is collected from users of the service? How do we use this personal data? We collect the following personal data from you: Name Email address Title/Position Organisation Organisational affiliation Username and password (to authenticate access to the system) IP Address (for anonymous usage statistics) We process your personal data: to provide you with the authenticated access to the EGA service (opening and managing submission and distribution account), to publicly publish some aggregate data to facilitate scientific research (e.g. number of accounts, geographic distribution), to better understand the needs of the users and to guide future improvements of the service, to create anonymous usage statistics. If you do not provide us with your personal data we will not be able to open the user account and offer you our services or we will only provide you a subset of functionalities available within the service. 4. Who will have access to your personal data? The personal data will be disclosed to: Authorised staff in the data controller’s institutions acting on data controller`s behalf and instructions (for all user account data), Requested dataset Data access committee – DAC will have access to the name, email, organization, affiliation, title/position of the distribution user account, using it for their own purpose of granting access to their datasets. 5. Will your personal data be transferred to third countries (i.e. countries not part of EU/EEA) and/or international organisations? Distribution user account data are in the process of granting access disclosed to dataset(s) DAC, which might be a recipient in countries outside of the European Economic Area. Insofar as the second joint controller may be subject to GDPR, data transfer to and from the first joint controller (EMBL-EBI) is necessary for important reasons of public interest embedded in the aims of the EMBL and justified in the Article 9(4) of IP 68 (equivalent to Article 49(1)(d) of GDPR) read in conjunction with EMBL`s 1973 establishing agreement and Article 179(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. 6. How long do we keep your personal data? All data are stored for as long as you have the account open. Thereafter the storage is prolonged for as long as our service is live, even if you stop using our services. This prolongation is necessary for further scientific research, to ensure legal compliance and security and to facilitate internal and external audits it they arise. By contrast, the log files for the data categories related to anonymous usage statistics (raw web service logs) are processed only for 30 days and thereafter erased. 7. The joint Data Controllers provide these rights regarding your personal data You have the right to: Not be subject to decisions based solely on an automated processing of data (i.e. without human intervention) without you having your views taken into consideration. Request at reasonable intervals and without excessive delay or expense, information about the personal data processed about you. Under your request we will inform you in writing about, for example, the origin of the personal data or the preservation period. Request information to understand data processing activities when the results of these activities are applied to you. It must be clarified that rights under points 4 and 5 are only available whenever you need support whilst using our website. For other processing based on the grounds of important public interest you cannot exercise your rights to object, rectify or erase your personal data according to the Article 13(2)(a)(b) of IP 68 (equivalent to Article 17(3)(b)(d) and Article 21(6) of the GDPR). 8. Supervisory authority If you wish to complain against the processing of your personal data, you may do so by post at: EMBL Heidelberg, Data Protection Committee, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany, or Autoritat Catalana de Protecció de Dades (Catalan Data Protection Authority), C/Rosselló 214, Esc A, 1r 1a, Barcelona 08008, Spain. Published at: February 6, 2019

  Documentation data-protection/privacy-notice/ega-user-account

• Privacy Notice for EGA Web user

  Privacy Notice for EGA Public Website This Privacy Notice explains what personal data is collected by the specific service you are requesting, for what purposes, how it is processed, and how we keep it secure. 1. Who controls your personal data and how to contact us? European Genome- Phenome Archive - EGA offers a service for permanent archiving and sharing of all types of personally identifiable genetic and phenotypic data resulting from biomedical research projects, jointly managed by European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). EMBL-EBI and CRG represent joint Data Controllers’ of processing of your personal data. They and their Data protection officers may be contacted for data protection queries and for exercising your rights under Section 8. You may contact EMBL-EBI, represented by dr. Thomas Keane, by: email at: tk2@ebi.ac.uk or post at EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Genome Campus, CB10 1SD Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, UK. EMBL’s Data Protection Officer may be contacted by: telephone at +49 6221 387-8590, email at dpo@embl.org , or post at EMBL Heidelberg, Data protection officer, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. You may contact CRG, whose EGA team is represented by dr. Jordi Rambla de Argila, by: email at jordi.rambla@crg.eu, or post at Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Dr.Aiguader 88, PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. CRG Data protection officer may be contacted by: email at dpo@crg.eu post at Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), C/ Dr. Aiguader, 88, PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. 2. Which is the lawful basis for processing personal data? For providing you access to the website and for offering support whilst using the website, we need your consent under Article 5 (2) of the IP 68 (equivalent to Article 6 (1)(a) of the GDPR). For monitoring your activities on the website, we process your personal data on the grounds of important public interest. Such legal basis is found in Article 5(1)(a) of EMBL Internal Policy No 68 on General Data Protection (hereinafter IP 68), which is equivalent to Article 6 (1)(e) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter GDPR) and upon which personal data are processed for the achievement of the aims laid down in 1973 agreement establishing EMBL, such as the promotion of the cooperation in the fundamental research, in the development of advanced instrumentation and in advanced teaching in molecular biology and dissemination of information. 3. What personal data is collected from users of the service? How do we use this personal data? We collect the following personal data from you: IP addresses Date and time of a visit to the service website Operating system Amount of data transmitted Browser Email address (only when support is requested by the user) The data controller will use your personal data for the following purposes: To provide the user access to the service To better understand the needs of the users and guide future improvements of the service To monitor website activities according to and in compliance with the Terms of Use To better understand the needs of the website visitors and guide future improvements of the service To conduct and monitor website security activities To create anonymous usage statistics 4. Who will have access to your personal data? The personal data will be disclosed to: Authorised staff in the data controller’s institutions acting on data controller`s behalf and instructions. 5. Will your personal data be transferred to third countries (i.e. countries not part of EU/EEA) and/or international organisations? There are no personal data transfers to third countries or international organisations. 6. How long do we keep your personal data? Any personal data directly obtained from you will be retained as long as the service is live. Such duration serves the purpose of enabling scientific research and ensures legal compliance and facilitates internal and external audits if they arise. By contrast, the log files for the data categories related to anonymous usage statistics (raw web service logs) are processed only for 30 days and thereafter erased. 7. The joint Data Controllers provide these rights regarding your personal data You have the right to: Not be subject to decisions based solely on an automated processing of data (i.e. without human intervention) without you having your views taken into consideration. Request at reasonable intervals and without excessive delay or expense, information about the personal data processed about you. Under your request we will inform you in writing about, for example, the origin of the personal data or the preservation period. Request information to understand data processing activities when the results of these activities are applied to you. Object at any time to the processing of your personal data unless we can demonstrate that we have legitimate reasons to process your personal data. Request free of charge and without excessive delay rectification or erasure of your personal data if we have not been processing it respecting the data protection policies of the respective controllers. It must be clarified that rights under points 4 and 5 are only available whenever you need support whilst using our website. For other processing based on the grounds of important public interest you cannot exercise your rights to object, rectify or erase your personal data according to the Article 13(2)(a)(b) of IP 68 (equivalent to Article 17(3)(b)(d) and Article 21(6) of the GDPR). 8. Supervisory authority If you wish to complain against the processing of your personal data, you may do so by post at: EMBL Heidelberg, Data Protection Committee, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany, or Autoritat Catalana de Protecció de Dades (Catalan Data Protection Authority), C/Rosselló 214, Esc A, 1r 1a, Barcelona 08008, Spain. Published at: February 6, 2019

  Documentation data-protection/privacy-notice/ega-website

• Privacy Notice for Data Access Committee Account

  Privacy Notice for EGA Data Access Committee Account This Privacy Notice explains what personal data is collected by the specific service you are requesting, for what purposes, how it is processed, and how we keep it secure. Note that this service collects personal data directly provided by the user, and also collects personal data from users that is provided by other organisations. 1. Who controls your personal data and how to contact us? European Genome- Phenome Archive - EGA offers a service for permanent archiving and sharing of all types of personally identifiable genetic and phenotypic data resulting from biomedical research projects, jointly managed by European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). EMBL-EBI and CRG represent joint Data Controllers’ of processing of your personal data. They and their Data protection officers may be contacted for data protection queries and for exercising your rights under Section 8. You may contact EMBL-EBI, represented by dr. Thomas Keane, by: email at: tk2@ebi.ac.uk or post at EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Genome Campus, CB10 1SD Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, UK. EMBL’s Data Protection Officer may be contacted by: email at dpo@embl.org, or post at EMBL Heidelberg, Data protection officer, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. You may contact CRG, whose EGA team is represented by dr. Jordi Rambla de Argila, by: email at jordi.rambla@crg.eu, or post at Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Dr.Aiguader 88, PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. CRG Data protection officer may be contacted by: email at dpo@crg.eu post at Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), C/ Dr. Aiguader, 88, PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. 2. Which is the lawful basis for processing personal data? We process your personal data on the grounds of important public interest. For monitoring your activities on the website, we process your personal data on the grounds of important public interest. Such legal basis is found in Article 5(1)(a) of EMBL Internal Policy No 68 on General Data Protection (hereinafter IP 68), which is equivalent to Article 6 (1)(e) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter GDPR) and upon which personal data are processed for the achievement of the aims laid down in 1973 agreement establishing EMBL, such as the promotion of the cooperation in the fundamental research, in the development of advanced instrumentation and in advanced teaching in molecular biology and dissemination of information. 3. What personal data is collected from users of the service? How do we use this personal data? We collect the following personal data from you: Name Email address Title/Position Organisation Organisational affiliation Business address Telephone number IP addresses Date and time of a visit to the service website Operating system Amount of data transmitted Browser Username Password The data controller will use your personal data for the following purposes: To provide DAC user account and authenticated access to the service, To publicly publish some information to facilitate scientific research, To better understand the needs of the data subjects and guide future improvements of the service, To create anonymous usage statistics (from number of DACs, datasets per DAC). 4. Who will have access to your personal data? The personal data will be disclosed to: Authorised staff in the data controller’s institutions acting on data controller`s behalf and instructions (for all user account data), The general public via Internet will get access to your name, email address, business address, telephone number and organisation you belong to. 5. Will your personal data be transferred to third countries (i.e. countries not part of EU/EEA) and/or international organisations? Data categories ‘name`, `email address`, `telephone number`, `business address`; `organisation’ of the DAC user are published on the Internet. They thus become accessible to recipients in countries outside the European Economic Area. Insofar as the second joint controller may be subject to GDPR, data transfer to and from the first joint controller (EMBL-EBI), is necessary for important reasons of public interest embedded in the aims of EMBL and justified in the Article 9(4) of IP 68 (equivalent to Article 49(1)(d) of GDPR) read in conjunction with EMBL`s 1973 establishing agreement and Article 179(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 6. How long do we keep your personal data? Any personal data directly obtained from you will be retained as long as the service is live. Such duration serves the purpose of enabling scientific research and ensures legal compliance and facilitates internal and external audits if they arise. By contrast, the log files for the data categories related to anonymous usage statistics (raw web service logs) are processed only for 30 days and thereafter erased. 7. The joint Data Controllers provide these rights regarding your personal data You have the right to: Not be subject to decisions based solely on an automated processing of data (i.e. without human intervention) without you having your views taken into consideration. Request at reasonable intervals and without excessive delay or expense, information about the personal data processed about you. Under your request we will inform you in writing about, for example, the origin of the personal data or the preservation period. Request information to understand data processing activities when the results of these activities are applied to you. It must be clarified that rights under points 4 and 5 are only available whenever you need support whilst using our website. For other processing based on the grounds of important public interest you cannot exercise your rights to object, rectify or erase your personal data according to the Article 13(2)(a)(b) of IP 68 (equivalent to Article 17(3)(b)(d) and Article 21(6) of the GDPR). 8. Supervisory authority If you wish to complain against the processing of your personal data, you may do so by post at: EMBL Heidelberg, Data Protection Committee, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany, or Autoritat Catalana de Protecció de Dades (Catalan Data Protection Authority), C/Rosselló 214, Esc A, 1r 1a, Barcelona 08008, Spain. Published at: February 6, 2019

  Documentation data-protection/privacy-notice/ega-dac

• Privacy Notice for Helpdesk service

  Privacy Notice for EGA Helpdesk service This Privacy Notice explains what personal data is collected by the specific service you are requesting, for what purposes, how it is processed, and how we keep it secure. Note that this service collects personal data directly provided by the user, and also collects personal data from users that is provided by other organisations. 1. Who controls your personal data and how to contact us? European Genome- Phenome Archive - EGA offers a service for permanent archiving and sharing of all types of personally identifiable genetic and phenotypic data resulting from biomedical research projects, jointly managed by European Molecular Biology Laboratory – European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). EMBL-EBI and CRG represent joint Data Controllers’ of processing of your personal data. They and their Data protection officers may be contacted for data protection queries and for exercising your rights under Section 8. You may contact EMBL-EBI, represented by dr. Thomas Keane, by: email at: tk2@ebi.ac.uk or post at EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Genome Campus, CB10 1SD Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, UK. EMBL’s Data Protection Officer may be contacted by: telephone at +49 6221 387-8590, email at dpo@embl.org , or post at EMBL Heidelberg, Data protection officer, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. You may contact CRG, whose EGA team is represented by dr. Jordi Rambla de Argila, by: email at jordi.rambla@crg.eu, or post at Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Dr.Aiguader 88, PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. CRG Data protection officer may be contacted by: email at dpo@crg.eu post at Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica - Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), C/ Dr. Aiguader, 88, PRBB Building, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. 2. Which is the lawful basis for processing personal data? We process your personal data on the grounds of important public interest. For monitoring your activities on the website, we process your personal data on the grounds of important public interest. Such legal basis is found in Article 5(1)(a) of EMBL Internal Policy No 68 on General Data Protection (hereinafter IP 68), which is equivalent to Article 6 (1)(e) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter GDPR) and upon which personal data are processed for the achievement of the aims laid down in 1973 agreement establishing EMBL, such as the promotion of the cooperation in the fundamental research, in the development of advanced instrumentation and in advanced teaching in molecular biology and dissemination of information. 3. What personal data is collected from users of the service? How do we use this personal data? We collect the following personal data from users of the service: Name Email address Job title Date and time when the support request was sent We will use your personal data for the following purposes: To provide uninterrupted user access to the service To better understand the needs of the users and guide future improvements of the service To create anonymous usage statistics 4. Who will have access to your personal data? The personal data will be disclosed to: Authorised staff in the data controller’s institutions acting on data controller`s behalf and instructions. 5. Will your personal data be transferred to third countries (i.e. countries not part of EU/EEA) and/or international organisations? There are no personal data transfers to third countries or international organizations. 6. How long do we keep your personal data? Any personal data directly obtained from you will be retained as long as the service is live. Such duration serves the purpose of enabling scientific research and ensures legal compliance and facilitates internal and external audits if they arise. By contrast, the log files for the data categories related to anonymous usage statistics (raw web service logs) are processed only for 30 days and thereafter erased. 7. The joint Data Controllers provide these rights regarding your personal data You have the right to: Not be subject to decisions based solely on an automated processing of data (i.e. without human intervention) without you having your views taken into consideration. Request at reasonable intervals and without excessive delay or expense, information about the personal data processed about you. Under your request we will inform you in writing about, for example, the origin of the personal data or the preservation period. Request information to understand data processing activities when the results of these activities are applied to you. It must be clarified that rights under points 4 and 5 are only available whenever you need support whilst using our website. For other processing based on the grounds of important public interest you cannot exercise your rights to object, rectify or erase your personal data according to the Article 13(2)(a)(b) of IP 68 (equivalent to Article 17(3)(b)(d) and Article 21(6) of the GDPR). 8. Supervisory authority If you wish to complain against the processing of your personal data, you may do so by post at: EMBL Heidelberg, Data Protection Committee, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany, or Autoritat Catalana de Protecció de Dades (Catalan Data Protection Authority), C/Rosselló 214, Esc A, 1r 1a, Barcelona 08008, Spain. Published at: February 6, 2019

  Documentation data-protection/privacy-notice/ega-helpdesk

• Data Use Ontology (DUO)

  Data Use Ontology Data Use Ontology at EGA The EGA is committed to its involvement in the work of GA4GH. In an effort to enhance data discoverability and streamline data access, EGA have implemented the use of the Data Use Ontology (DUO), based on consent codes as described in Dyke et al. 2017. The Data Use Ontology codes will be displayed on the live dataset page of your submission to advise any would be requestor on how the data can be used and also to enhance data discoverability as users will be able to search on these codes to find applicable datasets. DUO can be browsed online via the Ontology Lookup Service Learn more reading the Data Use Ontology publication and the GA4GH Machine-Readable Consent Guidance! Check our DAC Portal Take The Tour and learn how to add DUO codes to your policy! Term Shorthand Label Description DUO:0000004 NRES no restriction This data use permission indicates there is no restriction on use. DUO:0000042 GRU general research use This data use permission indicates that use is allowed for general research use for any research purpose. DUO:0000006 HMB health or medical or biomedical research This data use permission indicates that use is allowed for health/medical/biomedical purposes; does not include the study of population origins or ancestry. DUO:0000007 DS disease specific research This data use permission indicates that use is allowed provided it is related to the specified disease. DUO:0000011 POA population origins or ancestry research only This data use permission indicates that use of the data is limited to the study of population origins or ancestry. DUO:0000012 RS research specific restrictions This data use modifier indicates that use is limited to studies of a certain research type. DUO:0000015 NMDS no general methods research This data use modifier indicates that use does not allow methods development research (e.g., development of software or algorithms). DUO:0000016 GSO genetic studies only This data use modifier indicates that use is limited to genetic studies only (i.e., studies that include genotype research alone or both genotype and phenotype research, but not phenotype research exclusively) DUO:0000018 NPUNCU not for profit, non commercial use only This data use modifier indicates that use of the data is limited to not-for-profit organizations and not-for-profit use, non-commercial use. DUO:0000019 PUB publication required This data use modifier indicates that requestor agrees to make results of studies using the data available to the larger scientific community. DUO:0000020 COL collaboration required This data use modifier indicates that the requestor must agree to collaboration with the primary study investigator(s). DUO:0000021 IRB ethics approval required This data use modifier indicates that the requestor must provide documentation of local IRB/ERB approval. DUO:0000022 GS geographical restriction This data use modifier indicates that use is limited to within a specific geographic region. DUO:0000024 MOR publication moratorium This data use modifier indicates that requestor agrees not to publish results of studies until a specific date. DUO:0000025 TS time limit on use This data use modifier indicates that use is approved for a specific number of months. DUO:0000026 US user specific restriction This data use modifier indicates that use is limited to use by approved users. DUO:0000027 PS project specific restriction This data use modifier indicates that use is limited to use within an approved project. DUO:0000028 IS institution specific restriction This data use modifier indicates that use is limited to use within an approved institution. DUO:0000029 RTN return to database or resource This data use modifier indicates that the requestor must return derived/enriched data to the database/resource. DUO:0000043 CC clinical care use This data use modifier indicates that use is allowed for clinical use and care. DUO:0000044 NPOA population origins or ancestry research prohibited This data use modifier indicates use for purposes of population, origin, or ancestry research is prohibited. DUO:0000045 NPU not for profit organisation use only This data use modifier indicates that use of the data is limited to not-for-profit organisations. DUO:0000046 NCU non-commercial use only This data use modifier indicates that use of the data is limited to not-for-profit use. Point to Notice: For the consent code DUO:0000007 where data is restricted to use on a specific disease, please accompany it with an appropriate ontology from MONDO e.g., If the data is restricted to the use of research into juvenile idiopathic arthritis the code should be displayed as DUO:0000007; MONDO:0011429.

  Documentation access/data-access-committee/data-use-ontology

• What is a DAC?

  What is a DAC? Given the complexity, scale, and diversity of global submitters and studies, the EGA operates a distributed data access model in which requests are made to the data controller, not to the EGA. The European Commission defines a data controller, in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as the person that determines the purposes for which and the means by which personal data is processed. A Data Access Committees, commonly referred to as DACs, comprise on or more individuals (or data controllers) that review data access requests and make decisions on who can access personally identifiable genetic, phenotypic, and clinical data deposited at the EGA. Therefore, the members of a DAC should be individuals who have the authority to approve data access requests. The animation describes how you can authorise access to your sensitive data with the help of Data Access Committee and Authorisation tool. Acknowledgement to CSC - IT Center for Finland, Elixir Finland, Elixir Europe. Frequently Asked Questions How can I create a Data Access Committee? How can I create a Data Access Committee? The members of a DAC can come from different areas of expertise, such as data management, data analysis, information technology, legal and compliance, subject matter experts, privacy and security, and representatives from the organisations or individuals that provide data to the DAC. The specific members of a DAC can vary depending on the needs of the organisation and the type of data being managed. The EGA strongly suggests checking with your organisation to align with its regulations How should a DAC be named? The chosen name must be informative to the applicant.  For example, internal identifiers, such as grant numbers, should not be used. Individual PI names should also not be used. DAC's are often named after the organisation or department of the data source.  Browse the full list of DAC names currently in the EGA. How can I become an EGA DAC contact? To register a DAC at the EGA you must create first as an EGA user. Once your EGA user has been approved by the Helpdesk team, you will be able to log in to the DAC Portal. How can I register a DAC? To register a DAC, follow the DAC Portal instructions.  You will be required to provide a DAC name, name of the individual(s) that make up your DAC and contact details for your DAC including your Institutional email(s). Wherever possible, the DAC should make sure that all points of contact are readily available and able to answer any initial data requests/queries in < 2 weeks.  Once your DAC is registered, you will have to wait upon the validation from our Helpdesk team. As soon as all the validations have been completed, your DAC will be activated. Alternatively, you can also establish a DAC at the EGA during a programmatic submission through Webin API. Which are the possible roles of a DAC contact? There are two possible roles for DAC contacts: member and admin. An admin has additional privileges compared to a member: An “admin” can manage data requests, create and edit policies, edit the content of the DAC, add or remove contacts, and decide the role of each contact. A “member” can manage data requests and create policies. However, a member does not have permission to modify DAC details, edit information from policies where they are not admins, or add/remove contacts. There is no limit to the number of admins in a DAC, and each admin is responsible for deciding who should have editing privileges. This allows for a more decentralised and democratic approach to managing the DAC. How can I modify the information of a DAC? To modify a DAC, follow the instructions here. Keep in mind that only DAC contact with an admin role can modify the information of a DAC. If your DAC was registered before the lauch of the DAC Portal, and its ID is EGAC0 (not EGAC5), you must use the programmatic submission to modify it. Please, do not hesitate to contact our Helpdesk team if you need help with this! To prevent potential data breaches and ensure adherence to GDPR regulations, it is essential that the European Genome-Phenome Archive (EGA) is informed via the Helpdesk team of any changes to the Data Access Committee (DAC). This should be done in addition to any changes being made on the DAC portal. Data Controllers (as per the definition in the DPA) are also responsible for notifying the previous DAC of any modifications. Without proper notification, changes might not be automatically updated in our system, leading to the risk of incorrect permissions being applied and potential data access issues. Therefore, it is imperative that all Data Controllers follow this protocol to maintain data integrity and security. What’s the link between DAC, policy and dataset? A dataset is linked to one single policy. At the same time, one policy has a one to one relationship with a DAC. In this example, you can see that in this dataset page, we are only showing the information of one DAC (1 dataset - 1 DAC). However, the ratio of objects does not work the same in the other direction. One DAC can own multiple policy objects. And each policy object can be reused in several datasets. Thus, one DAC can manage one or more datasets. In this example, you can see that in this DAC page, we are showing all the datasets that are managed by one DAC (1 DAC - >400 datasets). EGA Data Access Committee Best Practices Which are the EGA DAC best practices? Refer to DAC Best Practices What happens if a DAC member changes institutions? EGA is committed to the protection and ownership of the data stored in our systems. We respect the institution's ownership of the data, and as such, if a DAC member changes institutions, the ownership of the data will not be transferred to the new institution. Therefore, before changing institutions, we request that the DAC contact add a new member who will replace them once they no longer work at the institution. This ensures that the data remains protected and is accessible to authorised personnel at the institution. To prevent potential data breaches and ensure adherence to GDPR regulations, it is essential that the European Genome-Phenome Archive (EGA) is informed via the Helpdesk team of any changes to the Data Access Committee (DAC). This should be done in addition to any changes being made on the DAC portal. Data Controllers (as per the definition in the DPA) are also responsible for notifying the previous DAC of any modifications. Without proper notification, changes might not be automatically updated in our system, leading to the risk of incorrect permissions being applied and potential data access issues. Therefore, it is imperative that all Data Controllers follow this protocol to maintain data integrity and security. What happens if EGA detects an unresponsive DAC? EGA defines an unresponsive DAC as a DAC with one or more contacts who do not respond to data access requests. EGA has procedures in place to identify these types of DACs, escalate the issue, and attempt to reassign the DAC to a responsive contact. This is a crucial step in ensuring that data can be accessed and utilised by researchers. If EGA identifies an unresponsive DAC, the organisation will first try to resolve the issue by escalating it to the appropriate parties. This may involve attempting to reassign the DAC to a more responsive contact. Unfortunately, in situations where we cannot reassign the DAC, the dataset will be withdrawn from the public website and the files will be removed from our system. If an EGA ID is referenced in a publication, the EGA will take extra steps to ensure that the public is made aware of the data's unavailability. I don't want to receive an email notification for pending requests. How can I do that? If you are an EGA DAC with pending requests, you will always receive emails for new data access requests. However, the EGA understands that a request resolution can take some time, for this reason, if you add a comment (make sure you save it by clicking the APPLY button!) we will filter those requests at the time of sending the notification! How can I manage data access requests? What documentation does the DAC need to provide? Each dataset that is submitted to the EGA must be linked to a policy object. The policy is a Data Access Agreement (DAA), which defines the terms and conditions of using the dataset, such as how the data files should be stored once downloaded or details of publication embargoes that should be observed by the approved user. As part of the Data Access Agreement, information regarding the application can be captured to help inform the DAC when making its decision. For example, requestors could be asked to provide a proposed title for their research and a proposal of how the data will be used. By asking for provision of such information the DAC can be assured that the requestor fully understands any consents associated with the data. It is important that accounts created at the EGA, are created solely for those individuals that will be downloading the data from the EGA. As part of the data access request, we strongly encourage you to identify individuals that will need an account at the EGA in order to prevent sharing of login details, which is strictly prohibited under EGA user account policy. Such information can easily be captured in the DAA. NOTICE The data access agreement template below is provided for guidance only and should be adapted as you see fit to suit your own purpose. In the interest of promoting data sharing, we suggest that if an agreement cannot be met around clause 19 in this example that both parties should agree to remain silent, and that the clause should be removed from the agreement. Example DAA How can the DAC provide the DAA? The DAC should provide their own DAA when registering a policy. Data requestors will download this document and should fill it in and send it back to the DAC. Data access decisions should be based on such documentation. The DAA can be downloaded through the request data webpage. Once it has been filled in, the signed copy of the DAA can be uploaded back to the request data webpage and sent to the DAC for review. How can I grant access to the data? Once you receive a data access request, you can login to the DAC Portal. In this portal you will see all your pending requests and will be able to grant or decline access to the requestors. I am a member of the Data Access Committee. Could I approve somebody else to deal with the requests on my behalf? If you want to delegate data access decisions to someone else, make sure that the individual's account is officially registered as a member of the DAC. Remember that a DAC contact with an "admin" role can always add new members to an existing DAC, remove members, and modify contact details through the DAC Portal. Can I automatise the process of managing data access requests? The answer is yes! You can use a programmatic approach using our DAC API! Check out the DAC API specification! Data Breach What should a DAC do if they suspect a breach? If a DAC suspects a data breach of one or more of their datasets, they should immediately contact the EGA Helpdesk team at this link. The DAC must provide the following information when contacting the EGA Helpdesk team: A list of affected datasets An estimated date of the data breach (or interval of dates) A list of unauthorised users who accessed the data (if available). Otherwise, they can provide a list of authorised users for the affected datasets Any observations they would like to raise to the EGA team Once the DAC has contacted the EGA team, we will respond within 48 hours (please allow some leeway during peak times) and activate our data breach protocol. What can I expect from the EGA if they detect a breach? Once the EGA determines that a security incident has occurred, we will notify all DAC members that a data breach has been detected, and take steps to contain the incident. Containment approaches may include: Revoking a data provider's access to the EGA resources, such as by changing passwords. Removing affected EGA datasets from distribution, such as by withdrawing a dataset. Disabling certain functions or services, such as the EGA ingestion pipeline. Shutting down the system or disconnecting it from the network. After the incident has been contained, the EGA will determine whether it is necessary to eradicate components related to the incident. Finally, the EGA will enable recovery of the service to normal operation and confirm that all services are functioning normally.

  Documentation access/data-access-committee/what-is-dac

• How to request data

  Request Data Access If you're looking to access data from the EGA for your research, you are in the right documentation page! In this page you will find a step by step guide on how to request data archived at the EGA, as well as some frequently asked questions you might find useful. When requesting data, you'll need to provide information about your research project and intended use of the data. Keep in mind that your data access request may require additional approvals or agreements depending on the datasets and data providers involved. Step by step guide Register yourself as an EGA user. Validate your account. A validation link will be sent to your email to activate your EGA user account. Log into the EGA page. Search the dataset of interest from the dataset catalogue or search bar. Click on “Request access” Add a comment requesting these files and send your request Your request is successfully registered, and the DAC will receive a notification about your request In addition to submitting your request, you should also contact the DAC directly via e-mail. You can access the DAC's contact information from the relevant dataset page. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Which is the role of the EGA in the data access process? The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) facilitates the secure distribution under controlled access of personally identifiable genetic and phenotypic data. Data Access Committee (DAC) is a body of one or more individuals who are responsible for data release to external requestors, based on participant consent and/or National Research Ethics terms. How do I request access to multiple datasets? To request access for multiple datasets managed by the same Data Access Committee (DAC), please start by visiting the DAC catalogue to locate the DAC of your choice. Once you've found the relevant DAC, proceed to its dedicated page where you'll find a "Request access" button. After logging in to the EGA website, you'll be presented with a comprehensive list of datasets under the chosen DAC. Select the datasets you're interested in, and then compose a message indicating your access request. Click the "Send" button to submit your request, which will include the chosen datasets. Please be sure to review the data usage policies for the requested datasets, as policies can vary among datasets managed by the same DAC. I am a co-applicant. Will I be given a joint access account? Each applicant needs to create an EGA account themselves, with unique login details. User log-in details are for individual use only and should never be shared, under any circumstances. EGA services are only provided to EGA account holders. Therefore, the co-applicant will send a formal request to the DAC. What happens if a co-applicant leaves or a new member needs to be added to an existing DAC application? The appropriate Data Access Committee (DAC) should be contacted and informed about the required changes so that the application can be updated. I have changed my place of work since my EGA account was created. Can I still have access to data? You must contact the relevant Data Access Committee (DAC). The DAC did not reply to my data access request. How should I proceed? There is no estimated time for DAC response. Please allow up to four weeks for a response. In the meantime, please send them a weekly reminder of the status of your request by emailing them directly.If the DAC becomes unresponsive, meaning that they fail to communicate with a requestor within the specified time frame, please contact the EGA Helpdesk team. I have an account with the EGA and would like access to further datasets. How should I proceed? You need to reapply to the relevant Data Access Committee (DAC). Once the DAC has approved your application your account will be updated and an email will be sent to notify you of a change made to your account. How do I download files of the datasets I have been granted access to? The preferred method for data download and decryption is the EGA Secure Download Client. Please carefully review the provided documentation. How do I download metadata? Metadata is retrieved from the EGA webpage; you will not need to use any download client. Be informed that you will only be able to download metadata of your approved datasets. For such download, you should first log in the EGA webpage with your credentials. Then browse the metadata's dataset you have gained access and you will find a metadata download button. You may also want to have a look our metadata schema. I have forgotten or misplaced my user account password; how do I get a new one? Click on “Log in”, located in the top right corner of the EGA homepage. Then click “Forgot password”, type in your registered institutional email address, and instructions for resetting your password will be sent to you. Please check both regular and junk/spam folders. I was sent a link to set a password for my download account, but it seems like the link has expired. What should I do? The procedure is the same as the one for a forgotten password, explained in the previous question.

  Documentation access/request-data/how-to-request-data

• Federated EGA

  Federated EGA Federated EGA Index Overview Map of FEGA status across the world Current status of the FEGA Network Documentation Overview Federated EGA is a global network of repositories enabling secure discovery and access to sensitive human data. Our vision is to accelerate scientific discovery and healthcare breakthroughs by creating the go-to worldwide sensitive human data resource. Our values are: Privacy & Trust: Ensuring privacy of data subjects, security of services and acting with integrity to build community trust.FAIRness: Driving reuse of data through standardisation of metadata and clear access policies.Diversity: Expanding our network and representing global diversity in the data we host to bring benefits worldwide. Federated EGA - European by name, global by nature Federated EGA 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. For general enquiries or to request more information about Federated EGA, please reach out to us here. Read more about the Federated EGA in our commentary in Nature Genetics! Learn more about setting up a Federated EGA Node in our onboarding documentation. Map of FEGA status across the world Current status of the FEGA Network Node Description Joined CEGA Central EGA is managed by the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and EMBL-EBI. The EGA has been a trusted repository for sensitive data since 2008. CEGA coordinates the FEGA network, hosts central services and the EGA catalogue. 2022 Finland FEGA Finland is hosted by CSC - IT Center for Science Ltd., which is the national ELIXIR Node in Finland. CSC is a state-owned company specialising in providing high-quality IT infrastructure and services for Finnish higher education and research. 2022 Germany The German Human Genome-Phenome archive (GHGA) is part of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). It is coordinated by the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and includes over 20 academic partners. 2022 Norway FEGA Norway is a service by ELIXIR Norway, the Norwegian node of the European organisation ELIXIR. University of Oslo as a partner institution in ELIXIR Norway is hosting the service relying on the TSD infrastructure for sensitive data. ELIXIR Norway is a consortium of 5 Norwegian universities and is coordinated by University of Bergen. 2022 Spain FEGA Spain is co-hosted by the Barcelona Supercomputer Center (BSC) and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), both part of ELIXIR Spain and the Spanish National Infrastructure for Personalised Medicine associated with Science and Technology (IMPaCT). 2022 Sweden FEGA Sweden is hosted by the National Bioinformatics Infrastructure Sweden (NBIS), which legally is part of Uppsala University. NBIS forms the bioinformatics platform at SciLifeLab and constitutes the Swedish node of the European organisation ELIXIR. 2022 Poland FEGA Poland is hosted by Biobank Lodz, which is part of University of Lodz. Biobank Lodz is an element of the infrastructure of the Regional Digital Medicine Centers established by the Medical Research Agency. 2022 Portugal FEGA Portugal is managed by BioData.pt, the distributed infrastructure for Life and Health data for Portugal. This entity is a non-profit association of 15 life sciences R&I organisations spread across the country, and the home of ELIXIR Node in Portugal. 2023 Canada Canadian Genome-phenome Archive is part of the Pan Canadian Genome Library, with the mandate to allow the secure and responsible sharing and analysis of Canadian genomic information. 2024 Switzerland Swiss FEGA is hosted by SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, which is the national ELIXIR Node in Switzerland, on behalf of the Swiss FEGA Partnership which includes 4 other key partners (ETH Zurich, Health 2030 Genome Center, Swiss Data Science Center and Switch). 2025 Documentation Title Version Description Mission, vision, values Federated EGA Mission, vision, values 1.0 The official Mission-Vision-Values statement for FEGA, produced and formally approved by the FEGA Strategic Committee in September 2025. Structure and Organisation Federated EGA Structure and Organisation 1.1 New version under review, coming January 2026. Strategic Committee Federated EGA Strategic Committee 1.1 Terms of reference for the FEGA Strategic Committee describe the purpose and objectives of the committee, which is to provide direction and strategic planning for the FEGA network. The committee receives input from, and provides feedback for the EGA Strategic Committee. Operations Committee Federated EGA Operations Committee 1.1 Terms of reference for the FEGA Operations Committee describe the purpose and objectives of the committee, which is to review operational performance and coordinate technical roadmaps of FEGA Nodes and Central EGA. The committee receives advice from, and provides operational reporting to the FEGA Strategic Committee. Guidelines Node Operations guidelines 2.1 An overview of the operational areas which require resources in order to create a FEGA Node. The document is based on more than 15 years' experience of EMBL-EBI and CRG operating the EGA and initial expericences of the inaugural FEGA Nodes. The operational areas of responsability are in line with the FEGA Maturity Model, which guides establishment and operation of FEGA Nodes. Collaboration Federated EGA Node Collaboration Agreement 1.3 Nodes are welcome to make a copy of this current version of the CA to start its review with their legal teams and understand the responsibilities of joining FEGA. Nevertheless, this version (the one with a watermark) shall not be signed: the official version needs to be obtained from FEGA prior signing through its official channels.

  Documentation about/projects-and-funders/federated-ega

• GA4GH

  Standards The EGA is a long-standing supporter of the Global Alliance for Genomics & Health (GA4GH) to enhance responsible sharing of human genetic data through the development of interoperable global standards for human data access. The EGA is one of the founding GA4GH Driver Projects and has contributed to the development and implementation of several GA4GH standards and APIs. Below is a list of the GA4GH standards and APIs that are currently available or planned for implementation at EGA. TechnicalStandards Purpose SpecificationVersion SupportedVersion Implementation Large Scale Genomics htsget A protocol for secure, efficient, and reliable access to sequencing read and variation data. V1.3.0 V1.0.0 Specification Documentation Endpoint Read File Formats (SAM/BAM/CRAM) Specifications for storing next-generation sequencing read data. V3.0.0 V3.0.0 Implementation Example of Usage Variation File Formats (VCF/BCF) The specifications for Variant Call Format Files (VCF) and its binary counterpart BCF. V4.0.0 V2.0.0 V4.0.0 V2.0.0 Implementation Example of Usage Crypt4GH v1.0 Enables direct byte-level compatible random access to encrypted genetic data stored in community standards (e.g. CRAM, VCF) V1.0 V1.0 Specification Documentation Endpoint refget API Enables access to reference sequences using an identifier derived from the sequence itself. V1.2.6 NA Specification RNAget API v1 Provides a means of retrieving data from several types of RNA experiments including (i) feature-level expression data from RNA-seq type measurements and (ii) coordinate-based signal/intensity data similar to a bigwig representation via a client/server model. V1.0.0 NA Documentation Discovery Beacon v2 Supports discovery of genomic variants, phenotypes, and individuals V1.0.1 V0.3 Web UI API Source Code Service Info API v1 The Service Info API is an endpoint for describing GA4GH service metadata, designed for extension and inclusion in other APIs. Service info is used to describe a single service, while Service Registry is used to describe multiple services. V1.0.0 NA Documentation Service Registry API v1 provides information about other GA4GH services, primarily for the purpose of organizing services into networks or groups and service discovery across organizational boundaries. V1.0.0 NA Documentation Data Use Researcher Identities Data Use Ontology (DUO) Allow users to semantically tag genomic datasets with usage restrictions, allowing them to become automatically discoverable based on a health, clinical, or biomedical researcher’s authorisation level or intended use. 2021-02-23 2021-02-23 Specification Documentation Endpoint Authentication & Authorization Infrastructure (AAI) The GA4GH AAI specification leverages OpenID Connect (OIDC) Servers for use in authenticating the identity of researchers desiring to access clinical and genomic resources from data holders adhering to GA4GH standards, and to enable data holders to obtain security-related attributes of those researchers. V1.2.0 V1.2.0 API URI: ega.ebi.ac.uk:8443 Documentation Repository Researcher IDs (passport, visa) Specify the collection of researchers that may access a dataset at any given time, and the credentials they must supply. V1.0.1 V1.0.1 Specification Documentation Endpoint Cloud Tool Registry Service API TRS is a standard API for exchanging tools and workflows to analyze, read, and manipulate genomic data. V2.0.1 NA Documentation Repostiory Data Repository Service API ​DRS API is a standard for building data repositories and adapting access tools to work with those repositories, works with other approved APIs from the GA4GH Cloud Work Stream to allow researchers to discover algorithms across different cloud environments and send them to datasets they wish to analyse. V1.0.3 NA Documentation Repostiory Workflow Execution Service API This API lets users run a single workflow (defined using CWL or WDL) on multiple different platforms, clouds, and environments, and be confident that it will work the same way. The API provides methods to request that a workflow be run, pass parameters to that workflow, get information about running workflows, and cancel a running workflow. V1.0.1 NA Documentation Repostiory Genomic Knowledge Standards Variation Representation v1 Provides a flexible framework of computational models, schemas, and algorithms to precisely and consistently exchange genetic variation data across communities. V1.3.0 EGA team is contributing to including it in in Beacon v2 Specification and Elixir Reference Implementation Documentation Repostiory Clin/ Pheno Data Capture Phenopackets Provides information models with different levels of complexity to enable high level clinical phenotype information as well as deep clinical phenotype information to be exchanged. V2.0.0 Included in Ongoing Submissions EGA team is contributing to including it in in Beacon v2 Specification and Elixir Reference Implementation Documentation Repostiory Driver Project The EGA, jointly coordinated by the EBI and the CRG, was announced, in 2017, to be one of the 15 Driver Projects for GA4GH. Driver Projects are international genomic data initiatives, focussed on real projects and challenges that will guide the development efforts in order to accelerate and enable completely responsible and standarised data sharing by 2022. All chosen Driver Projects make a cross-sectional effort by playing an important role across the different workstreams. Thomas Keane, Jordi Rambla, Mallory Freeberg, and Aina Jené have been named Driver Project Champions for the EGA. All Driver Project Champions will be leading this ambitious initiative for the following years.

  Documentation about/projects-and-funders/ga4gh

• Projects

  Projects Jointly managed by the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Cambridge (UK) and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, the EGA provides an invaluable service to the worldwide biomedical research community. The teams leading the EGA are involved in several international partnerships and consortia in numerous scientific fields, where they contribute to ambitious projects. In addition to the project listed below, The EGA is in a long-standing partnership with the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), as described on the dedicated page. On-going projects Project Duration Domain Funder Tags EASIGEN-DS | The EASIGEN-DS project aims to conduct a design study to establish a new European Research Infrastructure on Advanced Genomics Technologies, EASIGEN. To develop an excellent scientific, technological and operational design, we will conduct landscape studies, stakeholder consultations, and community surveying. 2025-2028 Genomic and health data Horizon Europe DATA MANAGEMENT DOCUMENTATION INFRASTRUCTURE Go-IMPaCT | Go-IMPaCT will contribute sequenced genomes and provide infrastructure as part of IMPaCT-Cohort, one of the three fundamental pillars of the Precision Medicine Infrastructure associated with Science and Technology (IMPaCT) program in Spain. Along with the Genome of Europe (GoE) project, around 18.000 people will have their genomes sequenced, also contributing to Spain's commitments in 1+MG. Go-IMPaCT will fund the development of an EGA node to manage and share this genomic and phenoclinic data, laying the foundations for regional and ethnic genomic variability in Spain to be available for research purposes. The IMPaCT cohort is created with the spirit of being an open research tool, compatible with the rest of the health research ecosystem, and other international initiatives. 2025-2027 Large-scale genomics and health data; personalised medicine Instituto de Salud Carlos III ACCESS DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE METADATA STANDARDS FAIR-FEGA | This project seeks to accelerate data depositions into FEGA, significantly increasing the data flow in and from FEGA nodes. It will build capacity within the FEGA nodes and increase awareness in a wide range of stakeholders, thus altogether achieving the ultimate goal of enhancing data reuse. The project will be carried out by a strategic consortium comprising seven ELIXIR nodes and two ELIXIR communities. 2025-2026 Not applicable ELIXIR ACCESS DISCOVERY DOCUMENTATION INFRASTRUCTURE METADATA STANDARDS FEGA-Connect | A consortium of six ELIXIR nodes plus the Polish FEGA node (in-kind contribution) joining forces to build a solid base to develop solutions for effective multi-omic sensitive data integration between FEGA nodes and other infrastructures and specialised Data repositories. We aim to promote a more coherent data deposition, discoverability and retrieval of multi-omics datasets, providing FAIRer data and consequently accelerating research. 2025-2026 Multi-omics data ELIXIR ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE METADATA STANDARDS IMPaCT-Data 2 | IMPaCT-Data 2 will develop a digital platform for the integration and modelling of biomedical data associated with IMPaCT (Precision Medicine Infrastructure associated with Science and Technology) projects in Spain. It will deploy a sustainable infrastructure that facilitates the integration, standardisation, interoperability and analysis of clinical, genomic, molecular and medical imaging data. This platform will be aligned with European projects such as Genome of Europe (GoE), the first project to make use of the European Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI), and EUCAIM. IMPaCT-Data 2 will benefit from advanced Artificial Intelligence and High Computing Capacity Systems capabilities, offering robust and accessible tools for researchers from the National Health System in Spain. 2025-2026 Large-scale genomics and health data; personalised medicine Instituto de Salud Carlos III ACCESS DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE METADATA STANDARDS ERDERA | The European Rare Disease Research Alliance (ERDERA) takes over EJPRD to deliver concrete health benefits to rare disease patients in the next decade by advancing prevention, diagnosis and treatment research. To leave no one behind, over 170 organisations championed by the European Union and member states are working hand in hand to make Europe a world leader in rare diseases research and innovation. 2024-2034 Rare diseases Horizon Europe; "La Caixa" Foundation cofunds CRG's contribution ACCESS DATA ANALYSIS DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE GoE | The Genome of Europe initiative aims to build a European network of national genomic reference cohorts of at least 500.000 citizens. These reference cohorts will be selected to be representative of the European population. 2024-2028 Large-scale genomic and health data Horizon Europe ACCESS DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE METADATA STANDARDS HEREDITARY | HEREDITARY aims to transform the way we approach disease detection, prepare treatment response, and explore medical knowledge by building a robust, interoperable, trustworthy, and secure framework that integrates multimodal health data (including genetic data) while ensuring compliance with cross-national privacy-preserving policies. 2024-2027 Neurodegenerative disorders, gut-brain interplay Horizon Europe DATA MANAGEMENT DATA ANALYSIS EOSC-ENTRUST | The mission of EOSC-ENTRUST is to create a European network of trusted research environments for sensitive data and to drive European interoperability by joint development of a common blueprint for federated data access and analysis. 2024-2026 Trusted Research Environment Horizon Europe INFRASTRUCTURE EBV-MS | "Targeting Epstein-Barr Virus Infection for Treatment and Prevention of Multiple Sclerosis". The ambitious goals of the project are to answer the questions why only a few EBV infected persons develop MS, and define the underlying mechanism of this process, as well as clarify if targeting the EBV infection can prevent MS or improve the disease course. 2023-2028 Viral-host genetics; immune response; disease modelling; Disease prevention Horizon Europe DATA MANAGEMENT DATA ANALYSIS WISDOM | WELL-BEING IMPROVEMENT THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF HEALTHCARE AND RESEARCH DATA AND MODELS WITHOUT BORDER FOR CHRONIC IMMUNE-MEDIATED DISEASES aims to deploy novel approaches for data processing, harmonisation, management, and secure data sharing and federated access for diseases like multiple sclerosis. Using an end-user guided approach, it will facilitate responsible and critical assessment of the use of AI in healthcare. 2023-2028 Chronic immune-mediated diseases Horizon Europe DATA MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE EUCAIM | EUropean Federation for CAncer IMages is a project that will build a highly secure, federated and large-scale European cancer imaging platform, with capabilities that will greatly enhance the potential of Artificial Intelligence in oncology. 2023-2027 Cancer Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) DISCOVERY CONTAGIO | CONTAGIO (COhorts Network To be Activated Globally In Outbreaks) aims to create coordination mechanisms to rapidly react to infectious disease (re-)emergence in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). 2023-2026 Infectious Diseases European Commission - Horizon Europe ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT DISCOVERY Youth-GEMs | Youth-GEMS (Gene Environment Interactions in Mental Health TrajectorieS of Youth) will conduct research into the genetic and environmental factors of mental health in young European people. 2022-2027 Mental health European Commission - Horizon Europe DATA MANAGEMENT DISCOVERY GDI | The European Genomics Data Infrastructure project is enabling access to genomic and related phenotypic and clinical data across Europe. It is doing this by establishing a federated, sustainable and secure infrastructure to access the data. 2022-2026 Genomic and health data European Commission - Horizon Europe; "La Caixa" Foundation cofunds CRG's contribution DISCOVERY DOCUMENTATION INFRASTRUCTURE EOSC4Cancer | EOSC4Cancer builds on existing projects, research outcomes and established community solutions to create the federated FAIR data, analysis and services infrastructure needed for European Cancer research programmes. 2022-2025 Cancer European Commission - Horizon Europe DISCOVERY IMPaCT-T2D | The IMPaCT-T2D project aims at studying the complete genomes of a large cohort of patients with Type 2 Diabetes mellitus (T2D), using modern sequencing technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) in order to improve the stratification and pharmacological treatment in the context of precision medicine. 2022-2025 Cardiovascular and Complex Diseases Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; Instituto de Salud Carlos III ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE EuCanImage | A European Cancer Image Platform Linked to Biological and Health Data for Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence and Precision Medicine in Oncology. 2020-2025 AI Solutions in Oncology European Commission - H2020 Programme; "La Caixa" Foundation cofunds CRG's contribution DATA MANAGEMENT METADATA STANDARDS GenoMed4ALL | A consortium built to empower personalised medicine in the field of haematological diseases through the use of AI and the pooling of genomic and clinical data. 2020-2025 Hematological diseases European Commission - H2020 Programme DISCOVERY METADATA STANDARDS Completed projects Project Duration Domain Funder Tags BY-COVID | The BeYond-COVID project aims to make COVID-19 data accessible to scientists in laboratories but also to anyone who can use it, such as medical staff in hospitals or government officials. Going beyond SARS-CoV-2 data, the project will provide a framework for making data from other infectious diseases open and accessible to everyone. 2021-2024 Infectious diseases European Commission - H2020 Programme ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE IMPaCT-Data | IMPaCT-Data aims to create the infrastructure for secondary use of data from Spanish healthcare systems - electronic health records, medical imaging and genomic repositories - and contribute with the knowledge and methodology produced to the healthcare system. 2021-2024 Large-scale genomics and health dataSpanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; Instituto de Salud Carlos III ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE LaMarató | It is a project aimed at creating and developing a catalan interhospitalary network to interrogate genetic variants from thousands of genetic tests carried out in patients with rare diseases from the main catalan hospitals. 2021-2024 Genomic and health data Fundació La Marató de TV3 (catalan foundation) DISCOVERY HealthyCloud | This consortium will contribute a Strategic Agenda towards the European Health Research and Innovation Cloud. The project will work in collaboration with a broad range of stakeholders to ensure that all voices are included and that the results are technically and ethically sound. 2021-2023 Not Applicable European Commission - H2020 Programme DOCUMENTATION B1MG | Beyond 1 Million Genomes aims to create a network of genetic and clinical data across Europe. The project provides coordination and support to the 1+ Million Genomes Initiative (1+MG). This initiative is a commitment of 24 EU countries, the UK and Norway to give cross-border access to one million sequenced genomes by 2022. 2020-2023 Not applicable European Commission - Horizon Europe DATA MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE METADATA STANDARDS ELIXIR-CONVERGE | An alliance with the goal of Connecting and aligning ELIXIR Nodes to deliver sustainable FAIR life-science data management services. 2020-2023 Data Management and Infectious Diseases European Commission - H2020 Programme DATA MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE METADATA STANDARDS IHCC | The International HundredK+ Cohorts Consortium aims to create a global platform for translational research – informing the biological and genetic basis for disease and improving clinical care and population health. 2020-2022 Translational research NIH; The Wellcome Trust; CZI INFRASTRUCTURE METADATA STANDARDS PPCG | The Pan Prostate Cancer Group aims to harmonise and interrogate Whole Genome DNA Sequence data generated around the world from over 2000 men with prostate cancer, with associated transcriptome and methylome data to include men from different clinical categories, and ethnicities. This project is about providing breakthrough advances through analysis of a very large series of Whole Genome DNA data from prostate cancer contributed by many of the leading scientists and clinicians working in prostate cancer genomics. 2019-2024 Cancer Cancer Research UK DATA MANAGEMENT CINECA | Consortium providing a Federated solution enabling population-scale genomic and biomolecular data accessible across international borders accelerating research and improving the health of individuals resident across continents. 2019-2023 Large-scale Genomics and Health Data European Commission - H2020 Programme ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT DISCOVERY INFRASTRUCTURE EASI-Genomics | A project designed to provide easy access to cutting-edge DNA sequencing technologies to researchers from academia and industry, within a framework that ensures compliance with ethical and legal requirements, as well as FAIR and secure data management. 2019-2023 Next Generation Sequencing European Commission - H2020 Programme ACCESS EJP-RD | An European consortium built to create a comprehensive, sustainable ecosystem allowing a virtuous circle between research, care, and medical innovation. 2019-2023 Rare diseases European Commission - H2020 Programme ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT DOCUMENTATION METADATA STANDARDS EOSC-Life | EOSC-Life brings together the 13 Life Science research infrastructures (LS RIs) to create an open, digital and collaborative space for biological and medical research. The project will publish 'FAIR' data and a catalogue of services provided by participating RIs for the management, storage and reuse of data in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). 2019-2023 Not applicable European Commission - H2020 Programme DOCUMENTATION EUCANCan | A federated network aiming at implementing a cultural, technological and legal integrated framework across Europe and Canada, to enable and facilitate the efficient sharing of cancer genomic data. 2019-2023 Cancer European Commission - H2020 Programme DATA MANAGEMENT METADATA STANDARDS The Federated EGA framework: supporting sensitive data management across the ELIXIR Nodes | This project is a direct continuation of the FHD IS with the goal to position the FEGA framework as the core infrastructure driver to support human data sharing for research. 2019-2023 Human genomic data ELIXIR INFRASTRUCTURE UK Biobank | UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource, containing in-depth genetic and health information from half a million UK participants. This project is to archive whole genome sequencing and other genetic data for UK Biobank participants. 2019-2023 Large-scale Genomics and Health Data The Wellcome Trust; UKRI; Amgen; AstraZeneca; GSK; Johnson & Johnson DATA MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE VEIS | The core mission of VEIS is to create an open ecosystem of technologies that will address and adapt to the requirements of the systems used to analyse and interpret -omics and clinical data in research and application environments in biomedicine. The aim of the project is to leverage the value of the EGA for both industry and society. 2019-2022 Oncology and Rare diseases Generalitat de Catalunya and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) ACCESS DISCOVERY ELIXIR BEACON IS | This study follows on from a number of earlier activities that have established the ELIXIR Beacon Project. The main aim is to extend the Beacon protocol, developed at EGA, to become the reference ELIXIR Data Discovery product 2019-2021 Not applicable ELIXIR DISCOVERY ELIXIR FHD IS | This project coordinates the delivery of FAIR compliant metadata standards, interfaces, and reference implementation to support the federated ELIXIR network of human data resources. 2019-2021 Human genomic data ELIXIR INFRASTRUCTURE ELIXIR Rare Disease | The Rare Disease Community extends and generalises the system of access authorisation and high volume secure data transfer developed within the EGA. The goal of the Community is to create a federated infrastructure that will enable researchers to discover, access and analyse different rare disease repositories across Europe. It is doing this in partnership with other European infrastructure projects, namely RD-CONNECT, BBMRI-ERIC and E-Rare.2019-2021 Rare diseases ELIXIR INFRASTRUCTURE Solve-RD | Solve-RD - solving the unsolved rare diseases - is a research project funded by the European Commission. It echoes the ambitious goals set out by the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) to deliver diagnostic tests for most rare diseases by 2020. The current diagnostic and subsequent therapeutic management of rare diseases is still highly unsatisfactory for a large proportion of rare disease patients - the unsolved RD cases. For these unsolved rare diseases, we are unable to explain the etiology responsible for the disease phenotype, predict the individual disease risk and/or rate of disease progression, and/or quantitate the risk of relatives to develop the same disorder. 2018-2024 Rare diseases European Commission - H2020 Programme ACCESS DATA MANAGEMENT METADATA STANDARDS EuCanShare | An EU-Canada joint infrastructure for next-generation multi-Study Heart research. 2018-2022 Cardiovascular Diseases European Commission - H2020 Programme ACCESS METADATA STANDARDS

  Documentation about/projects-and-funders/projects

• About

  About What's the EGA? The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) is a global network for permanent archiving and sharing of personally identifiable genetic, phenotypic, and clinical data generated for the purposes of biomedical research projects or in the context of research-focused healthcare systems. Jointly managed by the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Cambridge (UK) and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, we aim to advance biomedical research and promote personalised medicine worldwide by enabling discovery of and access to human genomic and health research data. The EGA contains data collected from individuals whose consent agreements authorise data release for specific research use to bona fide researchers. We ensure strict security measures to control access to the data and maintain patient confidentiality. With expertise in data management and technical infrastructure, we promote FAIR data reuse and enable researchers to share their data securely. By leveraging public funding and our strategic partnerships, the EGA provides a free service for permanent data storage, data discovery, and secure data access. In addition, we foster a federated network to provide transnational access to human research data in compliance with legal frameworks. For additional information about the EGA, please contact: Helen Parkinson, and Thomas Keane EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute Arcadi Navarro, Roderic Guigó, and Jordi Rambla Center for Genomic Regulation History The European Genome-phenome Archive was launched in 2008 at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), an outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), to address an identified need for archiving and sharing the results of genome-wide association studies from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. With the signing of a memorandum of understanding in 2013 and a formal agreement in 2016, the EGA became a joint project of EMBL-EBI and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). The two institutes work together to support the EGA services, including supporting submissions, website, strategic leadership, and data infrastructure developments. In 2022, the Federated EGA was officially launched with the signature of the first five countries: Finland, Germany, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. With more than 20 additional nodes worldwide preparing to join, the Federated EGA aims to become the largest human omics data sharing initiative towards understanding human health and disease. EGA overview If you're a researcher you may need to deposit, manage, or access genomic data in a secure and regulated way. The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) is a platform that facilitates these processes, ensuring that sensitive data is stored and shared in accordance with legal and ethical regulations. Submission process To start a submission, you need to become an EGA submitter. For that, you’ll need to sign a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with us, that defines the terms and conditions under which your data will be processed and shared within the EGA system. The access to each study is controlled by its Data Access Committee (DAC). The DAC is responsible for managing data access requests and ensuring that the release of data is in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Please, note that once your data is released, all public metadata related to your study and dataset(s) will be searchable on the EGA website. However, the files are only accessible under controlled access, which means that a DAC has to agree to a previous data access request. Request process It is possible to submit an access request to data stored at the EGA. The DAC assigned to the study will assess the request and, if approved, grant access to the data. Requesters must provide sufficient justification for your request and comply with the intended data usage in order to get access to it. Each dataset is covered by a Data Access Agreement (DAA) that defines the terms and conditions of use for the specified dataset/s. The DAA is created and provided by the DAC, and must be signed by the individual requesting access to the given dataset/s. Download process Once the request for access is approved, the data and metadata can be downloaded. The EGA offers various download options to fit the needs: it is possible to preview files without downloading them, download specific files of interest, or even download terabytes of data. Overall, the EGA provides a secure and regulated environment for depositing, managing, and accessing human data. Regardless of the role - submitter, DAC member, or requester - the EGA provides assistance for each while ensuring that sensitive data is managed in an ethical and responsible manner. More information on how EGA handles data is available in the EGA dataflow.

  Documentation about/ega

• Implementation of the GDPR

  Data Protection 1 About the EGA The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) was formally launched in 2008 at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), an outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), to address an identified need for archiving and sharing the results of genome-wide association studies from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. In late 2012, with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (and subsequent formal agreement in 2016) between EMBL-EBI and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the EGA formally became a joint project of the two institutes. The two institutes work together to support the EGA services, including supporting submissions, web site, strategic leadership, and data infrastructure developments. 2 EMBL-EBI & GDPR The EGA is co-managed by EMBL-EBI and CRG. EMBL-EBI is an international organisation established by treaty and has certain privileges and immunities (e.g. exemptions from the application of national law) and also may self-regulate its activities (e.g. establish its own institutional legal framework) within the framework of its founding act of 1973. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) regulation that legislates how organisations can share and process personal data of EU citizens. EMBL places great value in maintaining collaboration with researchers who are subject to GDPR. For that reason, it is of utmost importance for EMBL to handle data received from those collaborators in a secure and responsible manner. Mindful of its public mandate and the sensitivity of the data it handles, EMBL has always ensured a high level of data protection in its activities. Since the introduction of GDPR in May 2018, EMBL has established its internal policy on General Data Protection (IP68), exercising its right to self-regulate its operations,., IP 68 establishes a robust personal data protection framework that provides for data protection principles, enforceable data subject rights and oversight and redress mechanisms offering a level of protection comparable with GDPR. 3 CRG & GDPR The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) is an international biomedical research institute of excellence, created in July 2000 and mainly participated by the Catalan Government. It is a non-profit foundation and its mission is to discover and advance knowledge for the benefit of society, public health and economic prosperity. The CRG is a CERCA center. CERCA is the collective organisation for all research centres of excellence in Catalonia. CERCA ensures these centres develop successfully by promoting synergies and strategic cooperation improving their visibility and the impact of their research and promoting the dialogue amongst both public and private stakeholders. As a legal entity based in Spain and operating within the EU, the CRG ensures the compliance with the GDPR and the legal regulations on personal data protection applicable at the national level, as well as any other legislation that may replace, modify or supplement the above-mentioned in terms of personal data protection. 4 EGA & GDPR EGA GDPR Schema 4.1 Genetic and phenotypic data Within GDPR, there are two main actors: data controllers and data processors. Data controllers are persons or entities which determine the purposes and means that the personal data may be processed, e.g. companies, researchers, or universities. For EGA, the data controller is ultimately the data producer and the submitter(s) who submit the data to EGA. The data controller also creates a Data Access Committee (DAC) who will decide on data access permissions at EGA. Data processors are the persons or entities which process the data on behalf of a data controller. With regard to GDPR, EGA is a data processor as it processes data as instructed by the data controller. GDPR applies to any organisation which accesses personal data from an individual within the EU. Under GDPR, personal data is defined as any data that is identifiable, including names and email addresses as well as health-related and genetic data. EGA does not accept personally identifiable data except genetic and phenotypic data, so all other data submitted to EGA, such as names and addresses, must be pseudonymised. GDPR requires that data controllers implement data protection principles, such as data minimisation, to minimise the risk of data leakage, and protect the rights of the data subjects. As a data processor, EGA has a set of security policies that are followed to minimise the risk of unauthorised data access or data loss. In its role as a data processor, EGA requires all submitters to sign a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) when the submission account is first created. This agreement is only required to be signed once per submitter, and will remain valid for future submissions to EGA. 4.2 Other personal data The EGA also collects personal data as part of our interactions with submitters, data access committees, and researchers accessing data distributed by EGA. The below privacy notices explain what personal data is collected by the specific service you are requesting, for what purposes, how it is processed, and how we keep it secure. Privacy Notices for EGA Title Version Last Updated EGA Data Access Committee Account Privacy Notice for EGA Data Access Committee Account 1.0 February 6, 2019 EGA User Account Privacy Notice for EGA User Account 1.0 February 6, 2019 EGA Helpdesk Service Privacy Notice for EGA Helpdesk Service 1.0 February 6, 2019 EGA Website Service Privacy Notice for EGA Website Service 1.0 February 6, 2019 Documentation Title Version Description EGA Security Overview Security Document 1.1 The EGA Security Document provides an overview of EGA’s practices in ensuring the security of data stored at EGA. EGA Data Processing Agreement Data Processing Agreement 1.5 The Data Processing Agreement must be completed and returned as part of the submission process. Please note that this document is non-negotiable. Authorised Submitters Authorised Submitters Formulary 1.0 The Authorised Submitters Form must be completed and returned as part of the submission process. Please list all those that should have access to the submission account in order to submit to the EGA should be detailed here. Dispute Resolution Any controversy or claim arising out of, or relating to, the DPA (including the enforceability or breach thereof, any question regarding its existence, validity or termination) or relating to the EGA Service shall be resolved using the internal dispute resolution mechanisms of EGA including those related to Data Protection. The EGA’s internal dispute resolution mechanism has the following procedure: EGA OPERATIONAL PHASE: Meetings between EGA staff and the Data Controller. LEGAL MANAGEMENT PHASE: Meetings between legal teams of EMBL, CRG and the Data Controller. DIRECTION MANAGEMENT PHASE: Negotiation between the legal representatives of EMBL, the CRG and the Data Controller. If the internal dispute resolution mechanism doesn’t resolve the controversy or claim the next phase is: ARBITRATION PHASE: Resolution by arbitration under the WIPO Expedited Arbitration Rules (“Rules”).

  Documentation about/privacy-notice

• Baseline epigenetic clock measures in the Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing (NICOLA)

  Epigenetic clock measures for a subset of 1,870 participants within the NICOLA cohort. The following epigenetic clocks were generated: (±PC)PhenoAge, (±PC)GrimAge, (±PC)Horvath1, (±PC)Hannum, PCDNAmTL and DunedinPACE. +PC represents the use of the principal component adjusted version of the clock.

  Dataset EGAD50000002063

• ChIP sequencing for β-catenin and histone modifications in HCC cell lines and organoids with CTNNB1 mutations

  CTNNB1 mutation is a major driver of HCC, particularly in metabolic-associated subtype. This study utilized patient-derived tumour organoids and cell lines harbouring various endogenous CTNNB1 mutations to comprehensively map the transcriptional repertoire regulated by mutant β-catenin through ChIP-seq under normal and fatty conditions. Genome-wide binding patterns of β-catenin were integrated with ChIP-seq data for histone modifications H3K27ac and H3K27me3 to assess active and repressive chromatin states. Oleic acid treatment was used to model fatty conditions.

  Study EGAS50000001274

• Department of Human Genetics at Yokohama City University (YCU) — Data Access Committee

  The Data Access Committee at Yokohama City University (Department of Human Genetics) is overseeing controlled access to data for our research manuscripts. Access is granted to bona fide researchers in line with the Data Access Agreement and DUO restrictions.

  Dac EGAC50000000770

• SCLC MeDIP

  Mimicry of neuronal features are emerging as malignant regulators of cancer growth and metastasis. Neuroendocrine (NE) cancers and small cell lung cancers (SCLC) in particular have been shown to share expression profiles marking various stages of neuronal differentiation. Here, methylation profile from SCLC patients' tumour and normal tissue has been investigated genome wise.

  Study EGAS50000000506

• Low-input PCHi-C data in CD4+ T cells

  Low-input PCHi-C data in CD4+ T cells from Malysheva et al.

  Study EGAS50000001316

• Epigenomic dataset of Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma for EpiHK

  This dataset is generated for EpiHK. It contains Histone PTM ChIP-seq, WGBS, RNA-seq of Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma and tumor adjacent normal tissue sample.

  Study EGAS50000000039

• Clonal Evolution and Transcriptional Plasticity Shape Metastatic Dissemination Routes in Prostate Cancer

  This study provides comprehensive insights into the genetic and transcriptomic landscape of prostate cancer, highlighting significant clonal heterogeneity, transcriptional plasticity, and metastatic spread patterns. We examined the clonal evolution and metastatic dissemination of prostate cancer by integrating single-nuclei RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) and low-pass whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data from 43 spatially distinct tumour samples in five patients with locally advanced disease. By reconstructing the evolutionary trajectories of each tumour, we identified distinct patterns of tumour evolution, including both monophyletic and polyphyletic metastatic dissemination, as well as ongoing primary tumour clonal evolution after metastatic spread. We observed converging changes leading to metastatic potential, such as androgen receptor independence and increased activity in the estrogen, WNT, and JAK/STAT pathways in identified seeding areas. These findings enhance our understanding of the disease's progression and may inform future therapeutic strategies.

  Study EGAS50000000927

• Variability in immune response genes and prediction of severe SARS-CoV-2 infection (INMUNGEN-Cov2 project)

  Genetic factors may contribute to explain the variable clinical response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. To this end we sequenced the DNA of 392 COVID-19 patients from Spain. Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) was performed at two different sequencing centers. Half of the samples were sequenced at a commercial service, NIMGenetics, whereas the other half were sequenced by the EASI-Genomics consortium. Finally, Variant Call Format (VCF) files for each sample was also obtained.

  Study EGAS50000000066

• Dynamics of Tumor Heterogeneity from Primary to Metastatic Dissemination in Prostate Cancer

  PRO-SPeCT: PROstate cancer heterogeneity deconvolution through Single cell Profiling of Chromatin accessibility and Transcriptomic output Identifying drivers of cancer progression to guide treatment selection is hindered by limited abilities to understand tumor heterogeneity’s impact on evolution. Here, we delineated the phenotypic variability across ~300,000 prostate tumor cells collected from multiple loci in primary and matched locoregional metastases. We found inter-patient heterogeneity to be confined to malignant populations. While malignant cell populations exhibit intra-locus heterogeneity, they maintain inter-loci phenotypic similarity within a patient’s prostate gland. In addition, the intra-locus heterogeneity between malignant cell populations is paired with a common clonal architecture. Lastly, we show that malignant cell populations disseminating to locoregional lymph nodes mirror the clonal architecture and phenotypic heterogeneity observed across primary tumor loci while showcasing cell state transition toward inflammatory phenotypes. These findings provide insights into distinct measures of tumor heterogeneity, revealing diverse evolutionary paths across patients converging to common phenotypic adaptations in early prostate cancer progression.

  Study EGAS50000000524

• Bone morphogenetic protein-9 controls pulmonary vascular growth and remodeling

  Human PMECs from 10 donor lungs were isolated, cultured (passages 3 to 4), synchronized by serum starvation (0.3% FCS), and stimulated with 10 ng/mL BMP-9 for 4 h. Single-cell profiling was performed using the 10X Genomics Chromium RNA 3' V3.1 kit. Five experimental groups were analyzed using cell hashing and sequenced on an Illumina NextSeq500. Data were processed with Cell Ranger and Seurat for differential gene expression and functional enrichment analysis.

  Study EGAS50000001026

• Comprehensive genetic landscape, immune checkpoint profiling, and establishment of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) of metachronous brain tumors from constitutive mismatch repair deficiency with a biallelic variant on MSH6

  Constitutional mismatch repair deficiency (CMMRD) syndrome is a rare genetic disorder caused by biallelic pathogenic variants in mismatch repair genes (PMS2, MSH6, MLH1, or MSH2) resulting in the development of a variety of different tumors, including brain neoplasms. This study molecularly characterized a Brazilian child with CMMRD, harboring two metachronous brain tumors (medulloblastoma and high-grade glioma), and established a patient-derived xenograft (PDX) of the CMMRD-associated brain tumor. Keywords: Brazil, Constitutional mismatch repair deficiency syndrome, exome, MSH6, medulloblastoma, high-grade glioma.

  Study EGAS50000000351

• Whole Genome Methylation in CLL

  Study EGAS00001000272

• ChIP-seq analysis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma

  In order to understand the epigenetic basis on ccRCC, we performed ChIP-seq on 3 ccRCC cell lines (786-O, A498, UMRC-2), and 1 normal kidney epithelium cell line (HK-2), cultured under normoxic (20% O2) and hypoxic (0.05% O2) conditions. This study analysed data from H3k4me1, H3K4me3, H3K27ac, H3k27me3, H3k36me3, CTCF, and HIF1A

  Study EGAS50000001322

• Whole genome sequencing data of pediatric B-other subtype acute lymphoblastic leukemia

  For a long time, approximately 70% of childhood B-ALL cases could be classified routinely, and the remaining 30% were classified into the “B-other” group lacking the known genetic features. However, more recently, new genomic tools have uncovered new subtypes among the B-other groups. Approximately 10% of B-ALL cases lack the recurrent genetic abnormalities, and are referred as "B-other". They are typically more heterogeneous than other subtypes of B-ALL, and their prognoses are more variable. In a more recent update of the B-ALL classification, 27 subtypes were identified (Arber et al., 2022). The identification of some of these subtypes is dependent on NGS methods, such as RNA sequencing, which are not routinely used in all clinical laboratories. For example, ETV6::RUNX1-like and DUX4-rearranged subtypes have been identified using RNA sequencing. For this study, subtype predictions for some of the cases is acquired from ALLIUM (Krali et al., NPJ Precis Oncol., 2023) and ALLCatchR (Beder et al., Blood, 2022) based on the RNA-seq profiles.

  Study EGAS50000001497

• Contribution of specific cell types to the development of Barrett’s esophagus and carcinoma via germline genetic risk

  This study was designed to elucidate how individual cell types in Barrett’s esophagus (BE) and esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) contribute to disease development via germline genetic risk. We performed single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) of BE, EAC and paired normal esophagus and gastric fundus tissue samples. After analyzing individual cell types, we integrated the scRNA-seq data and data of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on BE/EAC to determine cell type-specific genetic risk. Raw data from the RNA-sequencing is provided here.

  Study EGAS50000000530

• RNAseq profile of monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T-cell lymphoma and enteropathy associated T-cell lymphoma

  Background : Enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma (EATL) and monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T-cell lymphoma (MEITL) are aggressive malignancies with limited treatment options and poor prognosis. Our research on MEITL has uncovered its genetic portrait including hallmark SEDT2 mutations, expanded its pathological spectrum, and identified molecular biomarkers influencing patients’ outcome. In this study, we aimed to establish and clarify the similar and diverging features of EATL. Methods : A large combined cohort of patients with EATL (n=30) and MEITL (n=52) was assembled and tumor samples were used for whole-exome and RNA sequencing profiling.

  Study EGAS50000001125

• The circulating cell-free DNA landscape in sepsis is dominated by impaired liver clearance

  Circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is a promising molecular biomarker. However, its utility in severe infection remains poorly understood. Here, we isolated cfDNA from sepsis patients and controls, demonstrating a 41-fold increase in the amount of cfDNA in circulation during disease. We used sequencing to reconstruct cfDNA methylomes, fragmentation profiles, and nucleosome footprints across 58 samples. We observed no difference in cfDNA composition between patients and controls, challenging the idea that cfDNA increases due to higher immune cell death during sepsis. Instead, we suggest that liver dysfunction prevents efficient clearance of cfDNA during disease. This was supported by fragmentation and end-motif patterns, both of which showed evidence of cfDNA being exposed to circulating nucleases for a prolonged period, proportionally to the extent of liver dysfunction. Variation in cfDNA of megakaryocyte-erythroid progenitor origin was also a significant contributor in sepsis, increasing over time. Moreover, we showed that cfDNA retains nucleosome footprints with cell type-specific gene activity information. We developed a novel approach to study nucleosome phasing that successfully recovers tissue-specific signatures. By combining this with single-cell data, we demonstrated that sepsis patients with liver dysfunction have higher amounts of cfDNA derived from Kupffer cells and the liver parenchyma. In conclusion, we present the first high-throughput multi-modal study of cfDNA during sepsis, which will serve as a reference point for future studies on the role of this biomarker in critical illness.

  Study EGAS50000001033

• Whole Exome Sequencing of monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T-cell lymphoma and enteropathy associated T-cell lymphoma

  Background : Enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma (EATL) and monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T-cell lymphoma (MEITL) are aggressive malignancies with limited treatment options and poor prognosis. Our research on MEITL has uncovered its genetic portrait including hallmark SEDT2 mutations, expanded its pathological spectrum, and identified molecular biomarkers influencing patients’ outcome. In this study, we aimed to establish and clarify the similar and diverging features of EATL. Methods : A large combined cohort of patients with EATL (n=30) and MEITL (n=52) was assembled and tumor samples were used for whole-exome and RNA sequencing profiling.

  Study EGAS50000001126

• A benchmark of DNA methylation deconvolution methods for tumoral fraction estimation using DecoNFlow

  In cancer patients, circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) originates from both healthy and cancer cells, and the proportion of tumor-derived cfDNA serves as a surrogate marker of tumor burden. Tumoral cfDNA can be identified using patient-specific mutations or more general tumor-specific DNA methylation patterns that are preserved in cfDNA, enabling non-invasive cancer detection and monitoring. Accurately estimating tumor fractions remains challenging due to the heterogeneous mixture of cfDNA sources in body fluids. Computational DNA methylation deconvolution methods can address this by estimating tumoral fraction with or without reference methylomes. Here, we benchmarked 10 reference-based and 2 reference-free DNAm deconvolution tools and provide the data generated for this benchmarking, consisting of 10 neuroblastoma cell lines and one healthy cfDNA sample (pooled from 15 healthy cfDNA samples), profiled using cfRRBS.

  Study EGAS50000001529

• LUMC Department Human Genetics, NeuroD-group

  Dac EGAC50000000749

• Genetic landscape of pediatric Retinoblastoma

  Study EGAS00001000346

• Genetic landscape of non-Down syndrome acute megkaryoblastic leukemia

  Study EGAS00001000379

• CUT&Tag sequencing of ZFHX4 and H3K27ac in midbrain dopaminergic neurons.

  CUT&Tag sequencing of the transcription factor ZFHX4 and the histone mark H3K27ac was performed in midbrain dopaminergic neurons (mDANs) derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. This epigenomic approach enabled the identification of ZFHX4 binding sites in this specific cellular context. Comparing the CUT&Tag profiles of ZFHX4 and H3K27ac provided insights into epigenetic landscapes in mDANs and revealed whether ZFHX4 exhibits patterns similar to the active transcription mark H3K27ac. Finally, enrichment analysis of the identified peaks highlighted potential primary targets of ZFHX4 in mDANs.

  Study EGAS50000001112

• ecDNA copy number heterogeneity

  Neuroblastoma exhibits significant inter- and intra-tumour genetic heterogeneity and varying clinical outcomes. Here, we used DNA and RNA sequencing from the same single cells in cell lines and neuroblastoma patients to investigate these effects. We reveal extensive intercellular ecDNA copy number heterogeneity. We also provide direct evidence of how this heterogeneity influences the expression of cargo genes, including MYCN and its downstream targets, and the overall transcriptional state of neuroblastoma cells.

  Study EGAS50000000509

• WES of Mino-VEN-R Mantle Cell Lymphoma Cells

  This project investigates the genetic basis of therapy resistance in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) using whole exome sequencing (WES) of the Mino_VEN_R cell line, a model of resistance to pirtobrutinib, a non-covalent BTK inhibitor. Our study suggested that drug-tolerant persister (DTP) cells evade therapy through metabolic and phenotypic reprogramming. By analyzing the exome profile of resistant cells, this study aims to identify mutations associated with treatment escape and cellular plasticity. The findings will contribute to a better understanding of resistance mechanisms and support the development of more effective therapeutic strategies.

  Study EGAS50000001088

• Single-nucleus ATAC sequencing of the human motor cortex

  Single-nucleus ATAC-sequencing of the human motor cortex in patients with ALS, C9ORF72-ALS-FTD, ALS-FTD and unaffected controls.

  Study EGAS50000001563

• Investigating Host Genetic Risk Factors for Tuberculosis in Highly Endemic South African Populations

  It is apparent from our recent population genetic and admixture mapping work 1–3 that a substantial part of the ancestral input into the South African Coloured (SAC) population is from the San or Khoe groups, which are not well represented in publicly available genetic databases. It is a reasonable assumption that the SAC population in the Western Cape may have derived more genetic input from the present KhoeSan population in the Northern Cape than the San residing in Namibia. It was concluded by our group that it is indeed the southern African KhoeSan group, the ≠Khomani, that best represent the KhoeSan contribution seen in the SAC 4. More recently, it has been shown that there are ancestry related increases in TB susceptibility, especially with increased Bantu-speaking African and KhoeSan ancestry 5. We aim to elucidate the epidemiological and human-host genetic risk factors for TB and the immunological pathways modulating TB infection. The proposed sub-study will enroll people evaluated for TB at Northern Cape community health clinics and their contacts from their households and/or community. We will conduct a demographic interview, collect saliva, which will be used for genetic analysis, and blood to determine latent TB infection status and capture immunological responses to mycobacterial infections at the cellular level and RNA sequencing.

  Study EGAS00001007850

• Context-specific regulatory genetic variation in MTOR dampens neutrophil-T cell crosstalk in pneumonia-associated sepsis, modulating disease

  Sepsis is a heterogeneous clinical syndrome with a high mortality, requiring personalised stratification strategies. Here, we characterise genetic variation that modulates MTOR, a critical regulator of metabolism and immune responses in sepsis. The effects are highly context specific, involving a regulatory element that affects MTOR expression in activated T cells with opposite direction of effect in neutrophils. We show that the G-allele of the lead variant, rs4845987, associated with decreased risk of T2D, reduces MTOR expression in T cells and improves survival in sepsis due to pneumonia, with effects specific to sepsis endotype. Using ex vivo models, we demonstrate that activated T cells promote immunosuppressive sepsis neutrophils through released cytokines, a process dampened by hypoxia and the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin. Our work demonstrates a novel epigenetic mechanism that fine-tunes MTOR transcription and T cell activity via the variant-containing regulatory element, which further exhibits an allelic effect upon vitamin C treatment. These findings reveal how genetic variation interacts with disease state to modulate immune cell-cell communication, providing a patient stratification strategy to inform more effective sepsis treatment.

  Study EGAS50000000894

• Transcriptomic and chromatin accessibility profiling in T cells for the MTOR genetics paper.

  This submission contains raw ATAC and RNA sequencing data from human primary CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, either stimulated or unstimulated with anti-CD3/CD28 Dynabeads, from three healthy donors. It includes 24 paired-end FASTQ files consisting of 12 poly(A)-enriched RNA-seq samples and 12 ATAC-seq samples sequenced on the Illumina NextSeq 500 platform.

  Dataset EGAD50000001307

• 3D chromatin contacts of iPSC (controls) and mDAN (differentiated neurons) cells

  Sequencing of 3 replicates per condition to gather insights on the 3D chromatin conformation of iPCS-derived neuronal progenitors (smNPCs) and mDANs using LowC. The downstream analysis studies changes in A and B compartment interactions and in topologically associated domains (TADs).

  Study EGAS50000001578

• ATAC-seq iPSC cells or smNPC cells for allelic imbalance

  In order to confirm the predicted impact of the PD-associated allele of rs144814361 on BAG3 promoter, we proceeded with genome editing of the TH-REP1 cell line by using prime editing to insert the “T” allele at the position chr10:119651405 in the BAG3 promoter. 3 replicates for each condition: 1) iPSC Wild Type 2) SNP-BAG3 variant in iPSC 3) SNP-BAG3 variant in smNPC. Allelic imbalance is further assessed using read counting at this specific position.

  Study EGAS50000001579

• Single-cell multi-omics and mtDNA genotyping of human peripheral blood cells

  In this study, we characterize human peripheral blood cells using mitochondrial single-cell ATAC-seq (mtscATAC-seq), which simultaneously profiles mitochondrial genomes and chromatin accessibility at single-cell resolution. This submission includes PBMCs from one healthy pediatric donor and one 80-year-old patient diagnosed with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) syndrome.

  Study EGAS50000001020

• Heritable pulmonary arterial hypertension - new genetic findings and environmental triggers

  Whole exome seqeuncing data were analysed for a total of 13 family members of five heritable pulmonary arterial hypertension (HPAH) families to identify a disease causing variant. In a first step, variants only present in affected family members and absent in healthy relatives of the respective family were selected. Subseqeuntly, due to incomplete penetrance of genes in PAH, the analysis was extended to variants present both in affected and healthy individuals. Heterozygous variants were primarily investigated followed by homozygous, compound heterozygous, and bi-allelic variants of interest. This study led to the identification of rare deleterious variants in three out of five families.

  Study EGAS50000001275

• Multimodal epigenetic sequencing analysis of cell-free DNA identifies biomarkers for ALS diagnosis and progression

  The role of the circulating epigenome in ALS remains understudied. We aim to develop diagnostic and prognostic blood-based biomarkers for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) by profiling methylome signatures in circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in 20 sporadic ALS cases, 10 C9orf72-associated ALS cases, 10 asymptomatic C9orf72 expansion carriers, and 21 healthy controls using targeted enzymatic methyl-sequencing (EM-seq) of ~4 million CpG loci. We detected numerous differentially methylated genes, including several implicated in ALS risk and pathobiology, and integrated multiple epigenetic features with our Multimodal Epigenetic Sequencing Analysis (MESA) algorithm, achieving an ROC AUC of 0.91 and detecting ~70% of ALS cases at ~100% specificity. Methylation at a subset of loci also correlated with clinical progression and cerebrospinal-fluid neurofilament levels, supporting the potential of cfDNA-based biomarkers for ALS diagnosis and monitoring.

  Study EGAS50000001267

• Multimodal epigenetic sequencing analysis of cell-free DNA identifies biomarkers for ALS diagnosis and progression

  The role of the epigenome in age-related neurodegenerative disorders remains understudied. Here, we analyzed circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from blood to detect methylation changes as a liquid-biopsy for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Our study included 20 patients with sporadic ALS, 10 patients with C9orf72-associated ALS, 10 asymptomatic carriers of the C9orf72 repeat expansion mutation, and 21 non-disease controls.

  Dac EGAC50000000739

• Single cell RNA and ATAC sequencing data from GBM patients

  Glioblastoma cells infiltrate and incorporate into the normal brain parenchyma. We conduct unbiased multimodal single-cell and spatial sequencing to capture GBM cells and the surrounding tumor microenvironment using a regional sampling strategy. For each patient, we profile the peritumoral region, tumor edge, and tumor core, providing a comprehensive characterization of the transcriptional and epigenetic landscape of GBM spatial heterogeneity, with a specific focus on infiltrative cells.

  Study EGAS50000000547

• Long read whole genome sequencing data from brain postmortem tissue

  Chart genetic variation in the human brain in healthy controls and Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients.

  Study EGAS50000000921

• After the completion of CINECA, EUCANCan, and euCanSHare. What's next?

  CINECA, EUCANCan, and euCanSHare were part of the EUCAN Cluster, made up of six projects that received funding under the same Horizon 2020 call. All EUCAN projects (CINECA, EUCANCan, EUCAN-Connect, euCanSHare, Receptor Plus, and ReCoDID) were aimed at facilitating data reuse and knowledge discovery by enhancing data exchange and long-term collaboration in the health field. Here are some highlights about EGA’s contribution to these projects. CINECA: advances in Federated discovery and infrastructure for cohorts CINECA (Common Infrastructure for National Cohorts in Europe, Canada, and Africa) developed a federated cloud-based infrastructure for making genomic and biomolecular data accessible. The project has assembled a virtual cohort of 1.4 million individuals from sources such as the EGA, CanDIG and H3Africa. The EGA–CRG co-leaded a work package Work Package 1 on Federated Data Discovery and Querying. Beacon v2, championed by Jordi Rambla and Lauren Fromont, has been one of the central elements for the discovery of human genetic and phenotypic data. The EGA-CRG contributed to the development of a model for cohort discovery inside the Beacon v2 model. The team also delivered a Discovery Portal was implemented to explore cohorts and individuals of synthetic data. It is a UI that gathers a network of Beacons, a service for query expansion, and a visualisation tool. Have a look at the Discovery Portal UI, gathering a network of Beacons. You will find entities such as the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), BioData.pt and the European Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI), among others. euCanSHare: facilitation of data access management This joint EU-Canada project aimed to build a European and Canadian FAIR platform for cardiovascular data sharing and analysis. The EGA’s tasks contributed to the development of the data management plan and data flows, main web-portal and interoperability protocols. An important part of the EuCanShare platform is the data access manager, a tool for the data owners to control the access to their sensitive datasets. We built a user-friendly interface for data access committees (data owners) to easily manage their data requests and access credentials. The data access portal facilitates the creation and internal organization of the data access committees as well as the linkage of data usage conditions to specific datasets. The interface includes filters for browsing requests and page to visualize the request history helping with the handling of data access requests. EUCANCan: toward a federation of clinical institutions in oncology The EUropean-CAnadian CANcer Network worked towards building a federated network to advance personalized medicine in oncology, by promoting the standard analysis, management and sharing of harmonized genomic and phenotypic data. The EGA led tasks on defining data flows and preparing an adapted infrastructure for long-term data storage and sharing. One of the key contributions was the conception of the EGA communities, offering standard and interoperable solutions for data discovery, processing, and sharing to projects and institutions that would like to manage and share data in the context of the EGA ecosystem. What's Next? The participation in projects such as CINECA, EUCANCan, and euCanSHare provide us with experience for future projects. We are happy to enhance data sharing and reuse, vital for advancing clinical and genomic research. The Discovery Portal is a wonderful proof of concept for the Beacon network. Next, we will finalise both the network and the user interface, and make sure it can be applied to more clinically-centred settings like hospitals. Most data hosted at the EGA are about cancer research. Currently, we contribute to building tools and infrastructure to empower oncology research in several European projects such as EUCAIM, EUCANIMAGE and EOSC4Cancer. We also do not lose sight of initiatives in the field such as the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) with the project ARGO, whose data model was adopted in EUCanCan.

  Blog cineca-eucancan-and-eucanshare-were-concluded-in-june

• The EGA at the International Congress of Human Genetics

  Today is the start of the International Congress of Human Genetics (ICHG). This event, hosted by the African Society of Human Genetics (AfSHG) and the Southern African Society for Human Genetics (SASHG), will reunite international experts to highlight how genomic technologies are being managed to address challenges generated by the current status of Human Health and Genomics. The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) will be at the Congress participating in workshops, meetings and talks where topics such as data access and discovery as well as the Federated EGA will be present. Data access and discovery In the context of the “Federated data analysis workshop“ that will be held the 26ᵗʰ, managed in the context of the CINECA project, a hands-on-session on Beacon v2 Discovery will be led by Mauricio Moldes. Another session on authorisation and data access will be presented by Mallory Freeberg and Coline Thomas, with and introduction by Thomas Keane. During the workshop, an end-to-end federated data analysis use case will be presented. Data access and discovery In the context of the “ Federated data analysis workshop“ that will be held the 26ᵗʰ, managed in the context of the CINECA project, a hands-on-session on Beacon v2 Discovery will be led by Mauricio Moldes. Another session on authorisation and data access will be presented by Mallory Freeberg and Coline Thomas, with and introduction by Thomas Keane. During the workshop, an end-to-end federated data analysis use case will be presented. During the last four years, CINECA has been identifying gaps in data sharing between Africa, Canada and Europe in order to build a federated solution for data access. Thomas Keane will present the project within the sessions happening the 24ᵗʰ. The Federated EGA at the ICHG A Federated EGA poster will be shown during the Poster Session 1 that will take place the 23ʳᵈ. The objective is to bring awareness of the European Genome-phenome Archive as a resource for permanent archive and secure data sharing. In this context, the network generated by the Federated EGA is key for cases where research data cannot be shared outside local jurisdictions. The Federated EGA was officially launched on 2022 with research institutes from five countries becoming the first nodes of this network. Nowadays, with more than 20 nodes preparing to join, it aims to become the largest human omics data sharing initiative towards understanding human health and disease. The H3Africa Initiative and the African research represented in the EGA 1.1% of the EGA studies include samples from African populations. Countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Uganda or Egypt, among others, are present in the 72.577 samples from African individuals archived at the EGA. 23 EGA datasets are managed by the Human Heredity and Health in Africa Initiative (H3Africa). This Initiative will celebrate its Consortium Meeting the 27ᵗʰ and 28ᵗʰ, back-to-back with the ICHG. H3ABioNet, the Pan African Bioinformatics Network for the H3Africa consortium, will also take this context to celebrate its 10-Year Symposium during the Congress. Members of the EGA team will attend both of them, as the H3ABioNet works in conjunction with H3Africa projects, to submit data to the European Genome-Phenome Archive.

  Blog the-ega-at-the-international-congress-of-human-genetics

• Shedding light over COVID-19 susceptibility and severity

  “One of the most remarkable features of SARS-CoV-2 infection is the variation in consequence ranging from asymptomatic to life-threatening” state the authors of the majestic Nature paper released in accelerated pre-view on July 2021. This variation in consequences represent not only an issue of burning medical relevance, but also a scientific and intellectual challenge for scientists around the globe. Researchers are known to be easily triggered by a challenge, and they recently demonstrated to be even better at double their efforts to focus on an urgent societal need. In this work led and coordinated by the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (COVID-19 HGI), researchers gathered data from 49,562 cases and two million controls from 46 studies performed worldwide. The majority of the data has been deposited at the EGA, where 29 datasets have been collected under the study number EGAS00001005304. Data gathered from diverse sources conferred a huge robustness to the results. Genetic data from different ancestry origin were included in the analyses, even though data from patients with European origin was highly predominant (approx. 75%). Separated analysis of the different ancestries gave rise to relevant differences in the results, highlighting how important it is to take this aspect in consideration for future studies. Data from the individual studies was compiled into three categories according to COVID-19 severity for a meta-analysis: (a) critically ill cases (b) moderate or severe cases (c) all cases. They were paired with non-COVID-19-reported controls. All three analysis resulted in a total of 13 genetic loci associated with COVID-19 severity. Out of those, 9 loci associated specifically with critical illness, while 6 (a few overlapped) associated with moderated illness. Some genomic position matched previous findings. Interestingly, working with such an enormous amount of data allowed the depth to discriminate association with disease susceptibility vs severity, an issue of large medical relevance. Several loci mapped into biological relevant genes, like TYK2, PPP1R15A and FOXP4, previously implicated in immune response and/or lung functions. Researchers participating in the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative have worked in an unprecedented time-tight collaboration, prioritizing data sharing and collective results to tackle the pandemic affecting the world. The scientific community won’t miss any of the lessons to learn from this, and the EGA is ready to keep working to enable safe data sharing and fruitful collaborations.

  Blog covid-19-susceptibility-and-severity

• GCAT | Genomes for life

  The GCAT project is a prospective cohort study that was designed to recruit the general population of Catalonia, the north-east region of Spain. This study is a long-term genomic, environmental and lifestyle cohort project that aims to evaluate and track multiple pathologies as well as biologically related traits. By the end of 2017, the GCAT Study had recruited a total of 20 000 participants aged 40–65 years. Participants who agreed to take part in the study completed a self-administered computer-driven questionnaire, and underwent blood pressure, cardiac frequency and anthropometry measurements. For each participant, blood plasma, blood serum and white blood cells are collected at baseline. The GCAT Study has access to the electronic health records of the Catalan Public Healthcare System. Participants are followed biannually for/during, at least, 20 years after recruitment. Therefore, the GCAT Study offers a unique opportunity to integrate diverse data to allow the identification of novel relations among different biomarkers and conditions. Results may lead to the development of new genetic, genomic, epigenomic and proteomic diagnoses and screening tests, as well as new public health recommendations. The only currently available population-based prospective cohort study in Spain to the date, including more than 4899 genotyped participants and 800 whole genome sequences is now stored in the EGA archive under accession id EGAS00001003018.

  Blog gcat-genomes-for-life

• Providing access to COVID-19 data: one year later

  response efforts On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. Four months later, the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) released its first COVID-19 dataset. This dataset – single cell RNA and VDJ sequencing of B cells from 60 COVID-19 patients – showed that neutralizing antibodies could be identified by high-throughput sequencing in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. That was one year ago. Today, the EGA provides access to fifteen COVID-19 datasets from researchers across seven countries in Asia, Europe, and North America. These studies represent almost 17,000 individuals and have resulted in at least sixteen publications and preprints. Researchers deposit controlled access COVID-19 data at EGA The global research community has come together rapidly to investigate the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and better understand the related disease, COVID-19. These research efforts generate valuable genetic and phenotypic data from patients and research participants that can be shared with approved researchers. The EGA enables sharing of this research data by providing a service for archiving and controlled distribution of sensitive data. Over the past year, the EGA has worked with researchers to archive and distribute COVID-19 data from high-throughput sequencing experiments, genotyping studies, and phenotypic information. These datasets investigate the immune system, blood, and cells and tissues of the lung, which are relevant for studying a contagious respiratory illness caused by a viral infection. *Study Spotlight. In January 2021, Ancestry.com demonstrated the utility of deep phenotyping based on self-reported outcomes from a large population of mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. They identified genetic associations with eight COVID-19 phenotypes and showed distinct patterns of association, most notably related to the chr3/SLC6A20/LZTFL1 and chr9/ABO regions. The supporting data is available at the EGA to approved researchers and includes both genotype and phenotype data for 15,000 individuals. EGA collaborates with global COVID-19 community Since the coronavirus outbreak, the EGA has collaborated with other life science resources to support discovery and access to COVID-19 datasets. COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative. With the NHGRI’s Genomic Data Science Analysis, Visualization, and Informatics Lab-space (AnVIL) platform, the EGA enables sharing of individual-level genetic and phenotypic data from the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (HGI). This initiative aims to generate, share, and analyze data from COVID-19 host genetics research projects to better understand the genetic determinants of COVID-19 susceptibility, severity, and outcomes. In response to COVID-19, the EGA actively supports COVID-19 data submissions and integration of data access and flow into the COVID-19-HGI analysis platform. *Study Spotlight. The COVID-19 HGI has combined individual-level data for 13,868 COVID-19 positive patients (N=7,167 hospitalized) from 17 cohorts in nine countries. The data were used to assess the association of the major common COVID-19 genetic risk factor (chromosome 3 locus tagged by rs10490770) with mortality, COVID-19-related complications, and laboratory values. The genotype and phenotype data for 10 of these cohorts is available at the EGA to approved researchers under accession EGAS00001005304. Fig 1: EGA COVID-19 studies are searchable in the European COVID-19 Data Portal alongside other COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 public datasets. European COVID-19 Data Portal. EGA-archived COVID-19 data are discoverable via the European COVID-19 Data Portal (Fig. 1), which brings together public and controlled access data to accelerate coronavirus research for the international community. By indexing all COVID-19-related data in one place, researchers can more easily discover relevant datasets of interest, thus increasing the “FAIRness” (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability) of this valuable data. Fig 2: SARS-CoV-2 viral sequences are imported from ENA and analysed in Galaxy to detect variants. Results are accessible to researchers through the COVID-19 Viral Beacon. COVID-19 Viral Beacon. The COVID-19 Viral Beacon tool was developed in collaboration with the European Nucleotide Archive and Galaxy to enable near real-time browsing of SARS-CoV-2 variability at genomic, amino acid, and motif levels (Fig. 2). The COVID-19 Viral Beacon allows researchers to (i) perform detailed searches about genomic variants, (ii) filter queries and find unique cases, (iii) filter data based on strain-specific variants, and (iv) explore associated metadata. It uses the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) Beacon standard including new Beacon v2 features. With this tool, researchers can study intra-host mutations on genomic regions of interest, or trace any variant frequency over time using raw read data. More than 200,000 SARS-CoV-2 analysed genomic data files are now available to researchers for further exploration. Ongoing COVID-19 efforts at EGA Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic is a global effort. Federated resources are necessary to support transnational deposition, access, and analysis of sensitive COVID-19 host genetics and other related data. At the same time, many countries now have emerging personalized medicine programmes which are generating data from national or regional healthcare initiatives. These data are subject to more stringent information governance than research data and often must comply with national data protection legislation. To address this need, the Federated EGA was established to serve as the primary global resource for discovery and access of sensitive human omics and associated data consented for secondary use. The Federated EGA will comprise a network of national human data repositories and will implement community standards and common interfaces. Launching Federated EGA promises to accelerate not only global research efforts to understand, diagnose, and treat COVID-19, but also to foster data reuse, enable reproducibility, and accelerate biomedical and disease research to ultimately improve human health.

  Blog providing-access-to-covid-19

• The last addition to the list of clonal evolution studies in the EGA

  Tumours of different types may arise from a single cell with at least one malignant mutation. Accumulation of subsequent hits generates lineages of cells with different cancer transformation power; thus, every clone follows an autonomous evolution, and several clones may co-exist into the same solid or liquid tumour. Clonal evolution studies are not new: the conceptual power of this approach has been recognized since the early ’80, especially in leukaemia patients. Nonetheless, these studies greatly benefit from recent technological improvements -machineries and protocols-, which enable ever-increasing sequencing depth, allowing the detection of low frequency variants and consequently more tumour clones. Note: the figure belongs to the original paper and is owned by the authors. Researchers at the University of Kyoto in Japan, have indeed used state of the art knowledge to investigate the clonal evolution of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in a large panel of patients. CML progresses from a majoritarian benign chronic phase into an often fatal blast crisis phase. It is nowadays known that blast crisis are triggered by genetic instability and disrupted DNA repair, which lead to accumulation of DNA mutations. The use of thyrosine kinase inhibitors targeting the Philadelphia chromosome have enormously improved the treatment of blast crisis, nonetheless resistant patients are still a medical challenge. Yotaro Ochi and collegues used Whole Exome Sequencing of paired chronic phase and blast crisis samples to depict the genetic landscape of progression from the first to the second stage of the disease (as illustrated in their figure). Their results were published in Nature Communication on this May 2021. They used a dataset previously deposited at the EGA (EGAS00001003071) and their new generated data have been made available under accession number EGAS00001005075. Their analysis of the occurring mutations contribute to understanding the mechanisms of CML evolution and therefore develop a protocol for early management of patients with a TKI resistance signature. Up to date, the EGA hosts 99 clonal evolution studies, developed in several cancer types, including myeloma, renal carcinomas and ovarian cancer, in addition to various leukaemia subtypes, where this approach has been more widely applied and produced important results and seminal papers. From a pan-cancer point of view, the definition of tumour architecture through clonal evolution studies is instrumental to unravel the mechanisms of disease progression and treatment-resistance insource. At the EGA, we are honoured to contribute to exciting and important science advances with our service!

  Blog the-last-addition-to-the-list-of-clonal-evolution-studies-in-the-ega

• The Federated EGA network

  In the last 10 years, most human omics data has been generated in the context of research consortia while recently there has been an emergence of large cohorts of human data generated by healthcare initiatives. Many countries in Europe now have nascent personalised medicine programmes. Thus, human genomics is shifting from being predominantly research-driven to being funded through healthcare systems. Genetic data generated in a healthcare context is subject to more stringent information governance than research data and nonetheless all data must adhere to national data protections laws. In this context, EGA identified the need for the development of a federated network to enable secure sharing of data whilst enabling genetic data to remain within the jurisdiction in which it was generated. The Federated EGA is designed to support national data management requirements for genomic and clinical data collected from citizens as part of healthcare or biomedical research projects. It includes a secure authorised access mechanism to support research use of these data across Europe and worldwide. We have engaged with over 14 ELIXIR countries to develop the federation model. The EGA federated configuration is composed of Central EGA, Federated EGA nodes and Community EGA nodes: Central EGA offers international submissions and helpdesk support, currently EGA co-managed by EMBL-EBI and CRG, Federated EGA nodes offer EGA services to researchers within their national jurisdiction, Community EGA nodes are individual institutions or initiatives with human genetic data intended to be shared with the research community. Key services available in the Federated EGA structure are: Central EGA Federated EGA node Community EGA nodes Data submission Offers international submissions service Offers submission service in a particular jurisdiction Does not offer an external submissions service Helpdesk support Provides external international helpdesk Provides helpdesk support for submitters in its jurisdiction and for approved users of data managed at its facilities Provides helpdesk support only for approved users of data managed at its facilities Data distribution Manages worldwide distribution for data hosted at Central EGA Manages worldwide distribution for data hosted at Federated EGA node Distribution for data hosted at Community EGA node EMBL-EBI and CRG have prepared a series of documents describing the overall governance and coordination framework. These describe the Federated EGA structure, the rights and responsibilities of the different parties and governing committees, and node operation guidelines. The federation governance proposal is under review by the first countries invited to join as Federated nodes, with further interested countries likely to join in the coming years. The Central EGA team has been working closely with many ELIXIR partners, including ELIXIR Finland, Luxembourg, Germany, Norway, Spain and Sweden.

  Blog the-federated-ega-network

• Data upcycling, powered by EGA

  In 2012 a collaborative effort headed by the teams of Carlos Caldas in Cambridge, UK and Samuel Aparicio, Canada, produced a pivotal study aimed at defining the mutational landscape of breast cancer. They gathered a collection of over 2000 breast cancer samples (METABRIC) associated with long-term clinical follow-up. They delineated an array of inherited and somatically acquired genetic variants and associated them to gene expression. This led to the identification of putative cancer-driving events and improved stratification of breast cancer patients. The study elicited huge attention and was tackled as herculean effort by fellow researchers. Cristina Curtis and her colleagues deposited the data in the EGA archive (EGAS00000000083). What they probably could not foresee is that their data would be reused more than 100 times, becoming one of the most downloaded datasets at EGA. In 2015, Frederik S. Varn and colleagues accessed the above-mentioned data from the New Hampshire, USA, to correlate it to transcriptional programs of hematopoietic cells infiltrated in breast tumours and found that those can influence patients' prognosis. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, improved the understanding of the interplay between immune system and cancer. Again, in 2017 the dataset was downloaded by an Italian/Polish collaboration and used to corroborate their mechanistic study that demonstrate how a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is aberrantly localized into the chromatin, where it modulates oncogenic isoforms expression, thus contributing to breast cancer. To date, the METABRIC dataset has been reused to contribute to 147 publications. Its impact on breast cancer research is incalculable, and it even spread beyond that, with recent contributions to the understanding of pan-cancer mechanisms and features. Some of the publications are translating into improvements in diagnosis and treatment of different types of breast cancer. This is just an example of how data upcycling can amplify the potential of any dataset, well past the scope of its creation, the imagination of its owners and any geographical border. At EGA, we are proud to empower such fruitful worldwide cycles of knowledge, providing a platform that enables safe sharing of sensitive genetic data.

  Blog data-upcycling-powered-by-ega

• Youth-GEMs, the project using data to define the mental health trajectories of young people

  Mental health trajectories are shaped by genetic, cognitive, social, and environmental factors that are particularly influential during human development. How exactly the interplay between these factors is impacting mental health, however, is yet unknown. The project “Gene Environment interactions in Mental health trajectories of Youth (Youth-GEMs)”, funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme, aims to help reducing mental suffering among European youth. How do Youth-GEMs contribute to bettering mental health in young people? Youth-GEMs aims to identify specific neurological, (epi)genetic and environmental drivers on mental health trajectories of young people. To do so, the project is working on a public knowledge base on functional genomics of the developing human brain, between birth and 24 years old. Reliable predictive models for trajectories of onset and course of mental illness in young people of the general population in Europe will be developed. Additionally, a secure and FAIR data infrastructure in mental health is being produced. Engaging and empowering young people Youth-GEMs is also working on the engagement of young people in the scientific field of Psychiatry. For that, the project is developing initiatives such as Science Café, intended to create a learning community where ideas and stories are shared. The 10th Science Café will take place today, with the participation of Lauren Fromont from the EGA. How do the EGA contribute to Youth-GEMs? The contributions require careful data management and harmonisation: we are dealing with an extraordinary amount of data types, sources, and time points (since the studies are longitudinal). To analyse them together and to determine which factors and interactions are truly key to account for mental health trajectories, the variables need to be transformed in a common “language”, i.e., harmonised under a common data model. Further, to guarantee FAIRness of data storage and sharing for future projects that will further advance our knowledge in the mental health field, we are ensuring that data are processed securely but can also be discovered easily. Find out more information about the project in the Youth-GEMs website.

  Blog youth-gems-mental-health

• From research to data sharing: exploring EGA user's experiences

  The Cell Plasticity and Regeneration Group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute-IDIBELL focuses on the process of recruitment of macrophages that takes place in the small intestine during injury and healing. They recently published a paper titled “Mucosal Macrophages Govern Intestinal Regeneration in Response to Injury" in Gastroenterology Journal. As part of the research, some experiments were conducted using human intestinal organoid lines. These cells were processed for RNA sequencing, and the sequencing data were deposited at the EGA to be made available to the scientific community. When dealing with human genomic information, repositories must ensure the availability of the datasets while ensuring data protection. In this context, the European Genome-phenome Archive stands as a service for secure archiving and sharing of genetic, phenotypic and clinical data resulting from biomedical research. Following the recent publication of their paper, we took the opportunity to talk to Ilias Moraitis, first author, and Jordi Guiu, group leader, to find out about their experience with data sharing. Could you explain the focus of your research? In the lab, we study intestinal regeneration and how immune cells participate in this process. We use several techniques: engineered mouse models, image tracing, as well as mouse and human cells intestinal organoids. What challenges do you face regarding data management? We didn’t have a lot of problems. Always the informatic part, the data analysis, can give problems. But everything was smooth and working. We think it’s very important to deposit the data in repositories. For the mouse data it is very straightforward, but for us it was the first time depositing human data, which is sensitive because it comes from patients, and this is legally regulated. That’s why we thought about the EGA, and it was our first time. Why do you think it is important to submit data to repositories such as EGA? Because we think data is important for the science. Nowadays, we are sequencing a lot everywhere worldwide and having these resources shared with the scientific community it’s not only good for science, but it is also saving money and reducing costs. And there is so much data in there that can be used for other projects and for other questions. And it saves time! How was the process of submitting the data to the EGA? The communication worked very well but it was slower than we would like. But I think this is something we learn on the way. People usually wait until the last minute to do this before publication but if you know it in advance, you can start the process earlier. If you had to repeat the process, would you do anything differently? It’s like everything, isn’t it? For the first time you don’t know, you aren’t sure, but for the second time you know the steps, you know what to do and it’s faster. Of course, we would to do it earlier. Also, there were some things related to the control access that we didn’t know how to manage, but it was something more internal to us. Who is going to receive the communications and when, is our ethical committee going to evaluate this? All these technicalities that we didn’t know before starting this process, so we had to think about all these things. Next time it will be faster on our side. Do you have any suggestions for us to improve the submission process? Maybe we’ll need to ask our bioinformatician who did it! He was in charge of this part. Besides that, we think if the process were faster, it would be better for everyone. Also, in science a lot of times you have to do a lot of things at the very last minute, because of the nature of the experiments, or the need to accomplish for submitting a paper. Being faster in the process would be a plus. On your side, we went through the process and were able to find some information, but there were aspects we weren't aware of and weren't sure how to handle. I'm not sure if other institutes have different protocols for managing data requests or how they handle these internally. We believe the main issue lies in how the forms are filled out. Do you have any recommendations for other submitters? The main advice is to do this with enough time. Submit the data when you have the sequences, and don’t wait until the last minute. And then it can be under embargo, so you don’t need to make it public at that moment. As soon as you sequence, upload it and then it will be there for whenever you need to publish. How do you think we could encourage other researchers to submit their data? There are different layers here. One is that it is mandatory. You have to do this. The other is that we belong to a research community, to the same community and sharing this is making our research community stronger and more efficient. And then, also because this gives you visibility. The data is there, other people can analyse your data, and this also will bring citations to your papers. It has many advantages.

  Blog from-research-to-data-sharing

• Long-read whole genome sequencing of gastric cancer

  Gastric cancer (GC) remains a significant health challenge globally, with a particularly high incidence in Asia, including Singapore. Understanding the genomic landscape of normal gastric and the different GC subtypes along with its precursor lesions such as intestinal metaplasia (IM) as well as GC metastatic sites is crucial for advancing diagnostics, prognostics, and therapeutics. Long-read sequencing technologies offer an opportunity to delve deeper into the genomic and epigenetic alterations underlying these conditions and to complement existing short-read omics data. By integrating these data with previously generated in-house multi-omics data (such as RNA sequencing and whole exome sequencing), we hope to better elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying GC initiation and progression.

  Study EGAS50000001607

• Osteosarcoma 3D patient derived cultures to test genome-informed personalized treatment options; a feasibility study

  Background: Improving osteosarcoma treatment beyond conventional (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy and resection remains challenging. An urgent need for novel therapeutic options, particularly personalized and targeted approaches, has emerged due to high inter-patient molecular heterogeneity. A lack of representative in vitro and in vivo models impedes therapeutic development, therefore we aimed to create 3D in vitro long term culture models directly from patient material. Methods: Tumour cells from seven osteosarcoma patients were propagated in monolayer or collagen hydrogels, while whole-exome sequencing of corresponding primary tumour tissue was performed to identify potential drug targets. Established cultures were subsequently used to assess efficacy of the identified personalized treatment options. Results: Three out of seven hydrogel cultures harboured the same genetic alterations as the corresponding primary tumours. Among these, the L6565 patient line exhibited homozygous CDKN2A loss with retained Rb expression, rendering tumour cells sensitive to CDK4/CDK6 inhibition via palbociclib. This patient line was used to evaluate genome-informed therapy and to compare cell culture models of increasing complexity. Our findings demonstrate feasibility of establishing long-term patient-derived osteosarcoma cultures with a success rate of 14%. Tumour heterogeneity was reflected in advanced culture methods producing more variability in treatment response. Conclusion: These results highlight the potential of genome-informed therapies in osteosarcoma and the importance of refining culture techniques to enhance translational research and therapeutic outcomes.

  Study EGAS50000001583

• Transcriptional and epigenetic profiling of bone marrow blood progenitors across age

  Bone marrow from donors without known malignancy was isolated and CD34-enriched, FACS-purified to further enrich for CD34+CD38- primitive cells, and then profiled by single-cell 10X genomics chromium Multiome (RNA+ATAC).

  Study EGAS50000001623

• Epigenetic reprogramming shapes monocytes and heterologous T cell derived cytokine responses in BCG vaccination

  Study EGAS00001007498

• Sutherland Nine Ancient DNA DAC

  This Data Access Committee controls access for the genetic data from the Sutherland Nine. It consists of involved Scientists and Family respresentatives.

  Dac EGAC50000000529

• Discordant_Monozygotic_Twins_ALS(Genetics)

  Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease. Regarding genetic factors, pathogenetic mutations in more than 35 genes have been identified as playing a role in disease pathogenesis. However, a substantial portion of ALS heritability remains unaccounted for, pointing to the potential involvement of additional genetic and epigenetic factors. For this reason, we conducted a multi-omics study on a monozygotic twin pair discordant for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, performing whole exome sequencing, transcriptomic and epigenetic analyses to gain crucial insights into underlying pathogenetic disease mechanisms. Here, we share genetic data.

  Study EGAS50000000908

• Discordant_Monozygotic_Twins_ALS(Transcriptomics)

  Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor neuron degeneration. Despite known genetic contributions to both familial and sporadic ALS cases, much of ALS heritability remains unexplained, suggesting the involvement of other genetic and epigenetic factors. To address this gap, we used a comprehensive multi-omics approach, in a pair of Italian monozygotic twins discordant for ALS, integrating DNA methylation, transcriptomics, and whole exome sequencing (WES). Here we share transcriptomic data derived from bulk RNA-seq on RNA extracted from PBMCs of the twin pair. This analysis revealed distinct transcriptomic profiles underlying the discordant disease phenotypes.

  Study EGAS50000000909

• HER2_positive_Breast_Cancer_

  We propose to definitively characterise the somatic genetics of HER2+ve breast cancer through generation of comprehensive catalogues of somatic mutations in a number of cases by high coverage genome sequencing coupled with integrated transcriptomic and methylation analyses.

  Study EGAS00001000042

• Genetic ancestry contributes to somatic mutations in lung cancers from admixed Latin American populations

  Inherited lung cancer risk, particularly in non-smokers, is poorly understood. Genomic and ancestry analysis of 1,153 lung cancers from Latin America revealed striking associations between Native American ancestry and their somatic landscape, including tumor mutational burden (TMB), and specific driver mutations in EGFR, KRAS, and STK11. A local Native American ancestry risk score predicted EGFR and KRAS mutation frequency more strongly than global ancestry, suggesting that germline genetics (rather than environmental exposure) underlie these disparities.

  Study EGAS00001004752

• DERMATLAS__Tubular_adenoma

  IVirtually no other tumour type is associated with so many different forms as skin cancer. Histologically, tumours of the skin may arise from epithelium, including epidermis, hair follicle, sebaceous or sweat gland, melanocytes, dermal-associated mesenchymal structures or tissue resident immune cells, making for a diversity of clinical presentations. Importantly, many skin tumour types have an extremely poor prognosis. Many skin tumour subtypes have never undergone molecular profiling, or if they have, targeted sequencing has been used and the number of cases analyzed has been so limited that deriving firm conclusions about the profile of driver genes, DNA mutational signatures and germline alleles has not been possible For 70 key skin tumour subtypes defined by the World Health Organization, that have not undergone extensive genetic analysis previoulsy, we propose to perform whole exome and transcriptome sequencing, from a range of body sites, to build a genomic atlas of dermatological tumours, including detailed maps of SNVs, copy number alterations, genome-wide methylation and expression profiles. The cases in this cohort are tubular adenomas.

  Study EGAS00001006686

• Patient-Derived Lung Cancer Organoid

  Lung cancer shows substantial genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity across individuals, driving a need for personalized medicine. Here we report lung cancer organoids and normal bronchial organoids established from patients tissues comprising five histological subtypes of lung cancer and non-neoplastic bronchial mucosa as in vitro models representing individual patient. The lung cancer organoids recapitulate the tissue architecture of the primary lung tumours and maintain the genomic alterations of the original tumours during long-term expansion in vitro. The normal bronchial organoids maintain cellular components of normal bronchial mucosa. Lung cancer organoids respond to drugs based on their genomic alterations: a BRCA2 mutant organoid to olaparib, an EGFR mutant organoid to erlotinib, and an EGFR mutant/MET amplified organoid to crizotinib. Considering the short length of time from organoid establishment to drug testing, our newly developed model may prove useful for predicting patient-specific drug responses through in vitro patient-specific drug trials.

  Study EGAS00001003786

• GENOMIC MUTATION LANDSCAPE OF SKIN CANCERS FROM DNA REPAIR-DEFICIENT XERODERMA PIGMENTOSUM PATIENTS

  Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) is a genetic disorder caused by mutations in genes of the Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER) pathway (groups A-G) or in Translesion Synthesis (TLS) DNA polymerase η (group V). XP is associated with an increased skin cancer risk, reaching, for some groups, several thousand-fold compared to the general population. Here, we analyzed 38 skin cancer genomes from five XP groups. We found that the activity of NER determines heterogeneity of the mutation rates across skin cancer genomes and that transcription-coupled NER extends beyond the gene boundaries reducing the intergenic mutation rate. Mutational profile in XP-V tumors revealed the role of polymerase η in the error-free bypass of (i) rare TpG and TpA DNA lesions, (ii) 3’ nucleotides in pyrimidine dimers, and (iii) TpT photodimers. Our study unravels the genetic basis of skin cancer risk in XP and provides insights into the mechanisms reducing UV-induced mutagenesis in the general population.

  Study EGAS00001006732

• UK10K COHORT ALSPAC

  The UK10K project proposes a series of complementary genetic approaches to find new low-frequency/rare variants contributing to disease phenotypes. These will be based on obtaining the genome-wide sequence of 4000 samples from the TwinsUK and ALSPAC cohorts (at 6x sequence coverage), and the exome sequence (protein-coding regions and related conserved sequence) of 6000 samples selected for extreme phenotypes. Our studies will focus primarily on cardiovascular-related quantitative traits, obesity and related metabolic traits, neurodevelopmental disorders and a limited number of extreme clinical phenotypes that will provide proof-of-concept for future familial trait sequencing. We will directly analyse quantitative traits in the cohorts and the selected traits in the extreme samples, and also use imputation down to 0.1% allele frequency to extend the analyses to further sample sets with genome wide genotype data. In each case we will investigate indels and larger structural variants as well as SNPs, and use statistical methods that combine rare variants in a locus or pathway as well as single-variant approaches. The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) is a two-generation prospective study. Pregnant women living in one of three health districts in the former county of Avon with an expected delivery date between April 1991 and December 1992 were eligible to be enrolled in the study, and this formed the initial point of contact for the development of a large, family based resource. Information has been collected on the children and the mothers through retrieval of biological materials (e.g. antenatal blood samples, placentas), biological sampling (e.g. collection of cord blood, umbilical cord, milk teeth, hair, toenails, blood and urine), self-administered questionnaires, data extraction from medical notes, linkage to routine information systems and at repeat research clinics.

  Study EGAS00001000090

• The Precision Medicine in Liver Cancer across an Asia-pacific NETwork (PLANET)

  Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the 2nd most important cause of cancer deaths in the world. The outcomes of treatment in HCC are poor compared to other common cancers because there are no good systemic therapy drugs. We designed a prospective study that will involve 5 different sites within the established Asia-Pacific Hepatocellular Carcinoma Trials Group to study both the genetics as well as immune profiles of HCC in different ethnicities. In this study, patients will be followed-up and at recurrence the tissues to understand the evolution of disease progression. Here, we presented both the genomic (DNA) and phenotypic (RNA) evolution for the first batch of 56 patients. The detailed findings will be listed in the corresponding publication soon.

  Study EGAS00001003813

• Exome_Sequencing__to_Identify_Causes_of_Leukaemia_Predisposing_Congenital_Neutropenias

  The objective of this study is to identify the causative genes in two unrelated congenital neutropenia families. We aim to whole exome sequence the affected individuals, unaffected siblings and parents in both cases in an effort to idenitfy the causative genetic mutation. Exome capture will be performed using Agilent SureSelect system. Subsequently, exome libraries will sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq platform. Sequence variant calling will be done in house and common variants excluded using public databases and data from unaffected family members.

  Study EGAS00001000100

• Reconstruction of human phylogenetic trees using single-cell genome sequencing

  The trillions of cells that constitute the human body are developed from a fertilized egg through embryogenesis. However, cellular dynamics and developmental outcomes of embryonic cells remain to be largely unknown due to the technical and ethical challenges. Here we sequenced whole-genomes single-cell-derived clones and various bulk tissues dissected from entire human bodies. Using the discovered somatic mutations as an intrinsic barcode, we reconstructed cellular phylogenetic trees that provide novel insights into early human embryogenesis.

  Study EGAS00001004824

• The genetic structure of Norway

  The aim of the present study was to describe the genetic structure of the Norwegian population using genotypes from 6369 unrelated individuals with detailed information about places of residence. Using standard single marker- and haplotype-based approaches, we report evidence of two regions with distinctive patterns of genetic variation, one in the far northeast, and another in the south of Norway, as indicated by fixation indices, haplotype sharing, homozygosity and effective population size. We detect and quantify a component of Uralic Sami ancestry that is enriched in the North. On a finer scale, we find that rates of migration have been affected by topography like mountain ridges. In the broader Scandinavian context, we detect elevated relatedness between the mid- and northern border areas towards Sweden. The main finding of this study is that despite Norway’s long maritime history and as a former Danish territory, the region closest to mainland Europe in the south appears to have been the most isolated region in Norway, highlighting the open sea as a barrier to gene flow into Norway.

  Study EGAS00001004826

• UK10K NEURO ASD MGAS

  In the UK10K project we propose a series of complementary genetic approaches to find new low frequency/rare variants contributing to disease phenotypes. These will be based on obtaining the genome wide sequence of 4000 samples from the TwinsUK and ALSPAC cohorts (at 6x sequence coverage), and the exome sequence (protein coding regions and related conserved sequence) of 6000 samples selected for extreme phenotypes. Our studies will focus primarily on cardiovascular-related quantitative traits, obesity and related metabolic traits, neurodevelopmental disorders and a limited number of extreme clinical phenotypes that will provide proof-of-concept for future familial trait sequencing. We will analyse directly quantitative traits in the cohorts and the selected traits in the extreme samples, and also use imputation down to 0.1% allele frequency to extend the analyses to further sample sets with genome wide genotype data. In each case we will investigate indels and larger structural variants as well as SNPs, and use statistical methods that combine rare variants in a locus or pathway as well as single-variant approaches. The MGAS (Molecular Genetics of Autism Study) samples are from a clinical sample seen by specialists at the Maudsley hospital and who have had detailed phenotypic assessments with ADI-R and ADOS.For further information on this cohort please contact Patrick Bolton (patrick.bolton@kcl.ac.uk).

  Study EGAS00001000113

• UK10K_RARE_HYPERCHOL

  In the UK10K project we propose a series of complementary genetic approaches to find new low frequency/rare variants contributing to disease phenotypes. These will be based on obtaining the genome wide sequence of 4000 samples from the TwinsUK and ALSPAC cohorts (at 6x sequence coverage), and the exome sequence (protein coding regions and related conserved sequence) of 6000 samples selected for extreme phenotypes. Our studies will focus primarily on cardiovascular-related quantitative traits, obesity and related metabolic traits, neurodevelopmental disorders and a limited number of extreme clinical phenotypes that will provide proof-of-concept for future familial trait sequencing. We will analyse directly quantitative traits in the cohorts and the selected traits in the extreme samples, and also use imputation down to 0.1% allele frequency to extend the analyses to further sample sets with genome wide genotype data. In each case we will investigate indels and larger structural variants as well as SNPs, and use statistical methods that combine rare variants in a locus or pathway as well as single-variant approaches.Familial Hypercholesterolemia is a condition where the affected person has a consistently high level of LDL which can lead to early clogging of the coronary arteries. All patients selected for this study will have been found not to carry the common APOB and PCSK9 mutations, and to have no detectable LDLR mutations by testing for 18 common mutations. For further information with regard to this cohort please contact Steve Humphries(steve.humphries@ucl.ac.uk).

  Study EGAS00001000129

• RNAseq_Pulldown_

  We propose to definitively characterise the somatic genetics of ER+ve, HER2-ve breast cancer through generation of comprehensive catalogues of somatic mutations in breast cancer cases by high coverage genome sequencing coupled with integrated transcriptomic and methylation analyses. In this experiment cDNA derived form Breast Cancer Cell lines was used in an Agilent whole exome pulldown experiment.

  Study EGAS00001000230

• DERMATLAS__Porocarcinoma_RNAseq

  Virtually no other tumour type is associated with so many different forms as skin cancer. Histologically, tumours of the skin may arise from epithelium, including epidermis, hair follicle, sebaceous or sweat gland, melanocytes, dermal-associated mesenchymal structures or tissue resident immune cells, making for a diversity of clinical presentations. Importantly, many skin tumour types have an extremely poor prognosis. Many skin tumour subtypes have never undergone molecular profiling, or if they have, targeted sequencing has been used and the number of cases analyzed has been so limited that deriving firm conclusions about the profile of driver genes, DNA mutational signatures and germline alleles has not been possible For 70 key skin tumour subtypes defined by the World Health Organization, that have not undergone extensive genetic analysis previoulsy, we propose to perform whole exome and transcriptome sequencing, from a range of body sites, to build a genomic atlas of dermatological tumours, including detailed maps of SNVs, copy number alterations, genome-wide methylation and expression profiles. The cases in this cohort are porocarcinomas.

  Study EGAS00001005721

• Whole genome bisulfite sequencing of hepatitis B virus-associated hepatocellular carcinoma tumor and non-cancerous samples

  To understand comprehensive epigenetic alterations in hepatitis B virus-associated HCC, we have conducted a whole genome bisulfite sequencing of 5 tumor samples and 3 non-cancerous samples (3 pairs and 2 tumors).

  Study EGAS00001002230

• Neuroblastoma tumor heterogeneity and cell plasticity (from patients)

  Two cell identities, noradrenergic and mesenchymal, have been characterized in neuroblastoma cell lines according to their epigenetic landscapes relying on specific core regulatory circuitries of transcription factors. Yet, their relationship and relative contribution in patient tumors remain to be defined. Here, we document a spontaneous plasticity between the noradrenergic and mesenchymal identities in a subset of cell lines. Strikingly, mesenchymal neuroblastoma cells revert to a noradrenergic phenotype in vivo. Consistently, tumor cells with a mesenchymal identity are detected in single-cell transcriptomic analyses of neuroblastoma tumors and PDX models. Our data also highlight neuroblastoma intra-tumor heterogeneity with the co-existence of distinct tumor populations, including sympathoblast-like and chromaffin-like cells suggesting that neuroblastoma cells arise from a common sympatho-adrenal progenitor.

  Study EGAS00001005322

• UK10K_OBESITY_GS

  In the UK10K project we propose a series of complementary genetic approaches to find new low frequency/rare variants contributing to disease phenotypes. These will be based on obtaining the genome wide sequence of 4000 samples from the TwinsUK and ALSPAC cohorts (at 6x sequence coverage), and the exome sequence (protein coding regions and related conserved sequence) of 6000 samples selected for extreme phenotypes. Our studies will focus primarily on cardiovascular-related quantitative traits, obesity and related metabolic traits, neurodevelopmental disorders and a limited number of extreme clinical phenotypes that will provide proof-of-concept for future familial trait sequencing. We will analyse directly quantitative traits in the cohorts and the selected traits in the extreme samples, and also use imputation down to 0.1% allele frequency to extend the analyses to further sample sets with genome wide genotype data. In each case we will investigate indels and larger structural variants as well as SNPs, and use statistical methods that combine rare variants in a locus or pathway as well as single-variant approaches. The GS samples are part of the Obesity group and will undergo exome sequencing.

  Study EGAS00001000242

• Integrative analysis of small cell lung cancer

  Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive lung tumor subtype. We conducted integrated analysis of genome sequencing, transcriptome, and copy number analysis and found an extremely high mutation rate of 7.4±1 protein-changing mutations per million basepairs. Evidence for inactivation of TP53 and RB1 was found in all sequenced cases. Furthermore, we identified recurrent mutations in CREBBP, EP300, and MLL, observed mutations in PTEN, in SLIT2, and EPHA7, as well as focal amplifications of the FGFR1 locus. As a major feature of SCLC we found mutation in histone modifying genes, observed genome alterations that are therapeutically tractable, and provide a framework for identifying biologically relevant genes in the context of a high mutation rate. Peifer et al., 2012, Nature Genetics.

  Study EGAS00001000299

• Summary statistics of meta-analysis using two genome-wide association study of inflammatory bowel disease in Koreans.

  Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a chronic inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal tract, is thought to develop due to dysregulated mucosal immune responses to gut flora in genetically susceptible individuals. Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are the two major subtypes of IBD. To identify additional susceptibility loci for IBD in Asians, we performed meta-analyses using two genome-wide association studies.

  Study EGAS00001005026

• The Genomic Landscape of Core-Binding Factor Acute Myeloid Leukemias

  Pediatric de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease that can be divided into clinically distinct subtypes based on the presence of specific chromosomal abnormalities or gene alterations. One of the best characterized subtypes of AML involves leukemias with alterations of the core-binding factor (CBF)-complex, which comprises the FAB subtypes M2 and M4Eo and associates with a favorable outcome. Patients with the AML M2 subtype harbor a translocation between chromosomes 8 and 21 [t(8;21)] that yields the chimeric fusion gene RUNX1(AML1)-RUNX1T1(ETO), while patients with AML M4Eo express the chimeric fusion gene CBFβ-SMMHC(MYH11) as a result of an inversion/translocation event of chromosome 16 [inv(16)/t(16;16)]. In an effort to define the total complement of genetic changes in CBF-leukemia, we performed paired-end whole genome sequencing (WGS) on diagnostic leukemia blasts and matched germ line samples from 17 pediatric CBF-leukemia patients using the Illumina platform. Somatic alterations, including single nucleotide variations (SNVs) and structural variations (SVs), including insertions, deletions, inversions, and inter- and intra-chromosomal rearrangements, were detected using complementary analysis pipelines (Bambino, CREST and CONSERTING). Recurrent screening of identified mutations will be performed in a cohort of approximately 94 cases of CBF-leukemias.

  Study EGAS00001000349

• Assessment_of_genetic_and_epigenetic_variation_in_human_IPS_cells_RNA

  In order to progress human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) towards the clinic, several outstanding questions must be addressed. It is possible to reprogram different somatic cell types into hiPSCs and from studies in the mouse, it appears that an epigenetic memory of the starting cell type is carried over to hiPSCs. However a comprehensive comparative study of the characteristics of these hiPSCs has been missing from the literature. Importantly studies which aimed to address these aspects of hiPSCs have used cells from different patients. In order to avoid this important confounding variable and to keep the genetic background constant, tissue samples were procured from the patients and reprogrammed to iPS cells. The transcriptomes of these iPS cells will be compared. Protocol: primary cultures of cells were reprogrammed to iPS cells. RNA was extracted using a standard column extraction kit.

  Study EGAS00001000367

• Multiome_HB

  Hepatoblastoma (HB) cells display strong phenotypic heterogeneity with a major impact on drug response, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, we use a single-cell multi-omic strategy to unravel the molecular determinants of this plasticity. HB display a continuum of single-cell states between hepatocytic (scH), liver progenitor (scLP) and mesenchymal (scM) differentiation poles, with an intermediate scH/LP population bordering scLP and scH areas in spatial transcriptomics. Chromatin accessibility landscapes reveal the gene regulatory networks of each differentiation pole, and the sequence of transcription factor activation underlying cell state transitions. Single-cell mapping of somatic alterations reveals the clonal architecture of each tumor, showing that each genetic subclone displays its own range of cellular plasticity across differentiation poles. The most scLP subclones, overexpressing stem cell and DNA repair genes, proliferate faster after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. These results highlight how the interplay of clonal evolution and epigenetic plasticity shapes the potential of HB subclones to respond to chemotherapy.

  Study EGAS00001006932

• Integrated genomic analysis identifies recurrent mutations and evolution patterns driving the initiation and progression of follicular lymphoma.

  follicular lymphoma (FL), the most common indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, remains incurable. A well-recognized complication of FL is its transformation to a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL)-morphology in a subset of patients, for which the clinical outcomes are poor. Recent genetic profiling and single case studies of donor-derived FL following stem cell transplantation had alluded to the putative existence of a ‘long lived’ tumor-initiating progenitor cell compartment from which successive disease events occurred. To chronicle the genetic changes associated with progression to transformation, we conducted whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of FL-tFL pairs and matched germline (GL) samples from six patients, a total of 20 genomes.

  Study EGAS00001000399

• HLA-DR is absent in primitive macrophages through epigenetic silencing of master regulator CIITA

  The earliest macrophages are generated during embryonic development from erythro-myeloid progenitors (EMPs) via primitive haematopoiesis. This process is poorly understood in humans and in the mouse is thought to be spatially restricted to the yolk sac. Human fetal placental macrophages, Hofbauer cells (HBC), arise during the primitive haematopoietic wave at ~18 days post conception. Here we identify a population of placental erythro-myeloid progenitors (PEMPs) in the early human placenta that give rise to HBC. PEMP are fetal CD34+CD43+ progenitors found exclusively at early gestational timepoints. Transcriptomic analyses reveal that PEMP have conserved features of primitive yolk sac EMPs, including the lack of HLF expression. Using in vitro single-cell culture experiments we show that PEMP generate HBC-like cells that completely lack HLA-DR expression  and demonstrate that this is a conserved feature of all macrophages generated by primitive haematopoiesis in humans. Finally, we demonstrate that the class II transactivator, CTIIA, the master regulator HLA-DR expression, is epigenetically silenced during primitive haematopoiesis, leading to HLA-DRneg macrophages. These findings demonstrate that HBC are derived locally from PEMP and establish the human placenta as an additional site of primitive haematopoiesis.

  Study EGAS00001006981

• Preeclampsia InterPregGen Consortium: Whole Genome Sequencing of 100 unrelated Kazakhs (DNA samples from the Scientific Center of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology, Almaty, Kazakhstan; Gulnara Svyatova, Principal Investigator

  Preeclampsia (PE) is a syndrome affecting pregnant mothers and fetus/babies characterised by hypertension and proteinuria, and is a leading cause of maternal and fetal death and of premature births worldwide. The InterPregGen Consortium was funded by a European Framework 7 (FP7) grant and grew out of the WTCCC3 GWAS comparing ~2000 UK PE mothers with ~6000 common UK controls. The EGAS00001000417 study data is whole genome sequencing of 100 unrelated Kazakhs in order to impute genotypes into PE cases and controls from Kazakhstan and to provide genetic data and infrastructure for future genetic studies in Kazakhstan and Central Asia more generally and to fill a gap in worldwide information as Central Asia is not adequately represented in available genomic data. This study is one component of the InterPregGen FP7 project. DNA samples for this component were collected by InterPregGen Consortium collaborators at the Scientific Center of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology, Almaty, Kazakhstan (Gulnara Svyatova, Principal Investigator)

  Study EGAS00001000417