CINECA

Human cohort studies and national healthcare initiatives are generating large biomolecular datasets, which researchers and clinicians require access to. The EU-funded CINECA project will develop a federated cloud-based infrastructure for making genomic and biomolecular data accessible that aims to accelerate research while improving health of individuals across continents.  

CINECA has already assembled a virtual cohort of 1.4 million individuals from population, longitudinal and disease studies such as the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA), CanDIG, and H3Africa; thus, creating one of the largest cross-continental platforms of human genetic and phenotypic data to advance in the understanding of complex diseases. 

The project will develop solutions both to the challenges of delivering trans-continental security requirements for data access, and to the ethical, legal, and societal commitments where data cannot move outside a legal jurisdiction. The project has already contributed to harmonising metadata, based on open global standards, which will drive variant and sample discovery in trans-continental virtual cohorts.