Federated life science data analysis: Overcoming challenges for global impact
This engaging forum, organised by ELIXIR Europe, brought together leading voices from industry, academia, and international organisations to explore the evolving landscape of federated life science data analysis. Through a diverse programme of insightful presentations, participants had the opportunity to exchange experiences, highlight best practices, and showcase pioneering research.
The event addressed significant challenges, ranging from data privacy and regulatory constraints to the need for standardised, interoperable protocols. These barriers have historically impeded the secure and effective sharing of sensitive data, slowing the pace of discovery and innovation.
Zetta Genomics was proud to be part of this vital conversation. The company hosted the session “Leveraging AI in Federated Genomics: Opportunities and Challenges Ahead,” chaired by Mark Hughes, Chief Commercial Officer at Zetta Genomics. This session focused on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in federated genomic data environments; highlighting both the immense opportunities and the technical, ethical, and regulatory challenges that must be addressed, alongside the ever-crucial discourse on how AI can responsibly push progress in genomic research and healthcare.
“It was great to give a talk and host a roundtable around federated AI in genomics. Conclusions were that technology like XetaBase makes this possible, but the challenges are regulatory and governance; and whether they are able to keep up with the technology. Having these conversations with world leaders in the field felt like a step forward for all these issues.”
Mark Hughes, CCO, Zetta Genomics
Other industrial approaches in Federated Data Analytics were brought to the fore in a wider session:
- Mark Hughes (Zetta Genomics): Unified Omics in the Era of Data Federation
- Philip Quinlan (University of Nottingham) & Anni Ahonen-Bishopp (BC Platforms): Delivering impact by partnership, the Bunny story
- Matthias Orlowski (Bayer AG): Business-ready NLP models through Federated Learning. A Bayer-Roche Collaboration
- Christina Chatzipantsiou (Lifebit): Multi-party trusted research environment federation: Establishing infrastructure for secure analysis across different clinical-genomic datasets
Some great conversations at the ELIXIR Bioinformatic Forum about data federation in healthcare and genomics. The technology is ready – it works, it scales, it’s secure. Now the real challenges are governance and getting the right standards in place for data formats so that federation can actually happen. It’s not about “can we” anymore, it’s about how we should.
With thanks to https://elixir-europe.org/ for inviting us to participate and to the event partners:
