GUARDIANS partners gather in Brisbane to align on national human omics infrastructure
Partners collaborating on the future of Australia’s human omics research data ecosystem gathered in Brisbane this month for their second in-person meeting. This effort is driven by the GUARDIANS program that is delivering digital research infrastructure for human omics data nationally.
Building a complex national ecosystem for this data demands more than just the technical tools, it needs active collaboration and a genuine community of practice. Coming together to review the foundational achievements of Year 1 of the program and strategically align activities for Year 2, the meeting fostered an environment of open communication, mutual learning, and collective problem-solving across the two days.
The first day of the program focused on partner presentations, with teams highlighting their progress and challenges. These covered data commons deployments, data access control frameworks, and platform integration, and the presentations concluded with an engaging retrospective discussion.
A/Prof Natalie Taylor, UNSW, speaking on ‘Implementation to Impact’
Partners and GUARDIANS team members at QIMR Berghofer
A highlight of the day was the keynote presentation on ‘Implementation to Impact’ from A/Prof Natalie Taylor, UNSW, speaking to systematic approaches to bridge the gap between research evidence and clinical practice. She challenged the attendees to design infrastructure not just for technical functions, but for real-world adoption to deliver real health outcomes.
The second day focused on practical applications, featuring a series of workshops to showcase the progress and frameworks across the project. An integrated data access and release management workflow was demonstrated by the Collaborative Centre for Genomic Cancer Medicine, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research showcased their Elsa, CTRL and REMS tools, and QIMR Berghofer gave a highly practical review of consent and the data access request process.
The session from the GUARDIANS’s Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) team navigated through the complexities of cross-border omics data governance. This was complemented by the ‘Threat Modelling’ workshop run by the BioCommons Cybersecurity Specialist. Finally, GUARDIANS Project Managers led a workshop to identify concrete opportunities for inter-organisational interoperability in Year 2, ensuring future efforts are integrated rather than siloed.
The strategic discussions and practical demonstrations in Brisbane showed that progress is being made towards a national human omics research data ecosystem.
“Reflecting on Year 1, the significant outcomes include technical tools and infrastructure, and also the genuine community of practice and collaborative environment we’ve built,” said Prof Bernie Pope, A/Director (Human Genome Informatics) at BioCommons and Lead for the GUARDIANS project.
“This foundation will be crucial as we tackle increasingly complex challenges in delivering this national data ecosystem. ”
ELSI presentation on ‘Omics Data Beyond Borders - Law, Ethics and Governance’
GUARDIANS team and partners discussing collaboration opportunities
The GUARDIANS program is accelerating human omics research in Australia through the development of world-class digital infrastructure. The program is led by Australian BioCommons with contributions from partner organisations including the Australian Access Federation, Children’s Cancer Institute Australia, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, National Computational Infrastructure, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, The University of Melbourne, and The University of Sydney. GUARDIANS forms part of Australian BioCommons’ Human Genome Informatics Initiative and receives National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) support through Bioplatforms Australia.
