The goal of the proposed research training program is to strengthen the capacity of Venezuelan scientists based at the University of Zulia to study genetics of common hereditable disorders relevant to Latin America and the Caribbean, and in particular to Venezuela.

This project proposes to create a new research training program in genetics for students, researchers, and professionals from the developing country, People's Republic of China. This collaborative program will be developed between The Johns Hopkins University and two major institutions in Beijing, Peking Union Medical College and Peking University. This program will train researchers in the principles of genetic research on complex disorders such as birth defects and chronic diseases.

The post-genomic era is characterized by a strong and growing need for bioinformatics software tools designed to analyze and organize structural and functional genomic information. Intellectual property protection and licensing practices are expected to have a profound impact on the creation, distribution and utilization of bioinformatics software tools. In the bioinformatics community, there are differing views on how to best promote the creation and distribution of bioinformatics software.

Methodological advances now permit the use of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to discover novel genotype-phenotype associations. GWAS offer a powerful tool for identifying genetic contributions to both common and rare diseases. At the same time, GWAS raise profound and challenging ethical questions. The most pressing questions derive from the likelihood that GWAS will uncover genetic information with the potential to be clinically meaningful to individual participants.

The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) and Return of Results Consortium (RoRC) programs are designed to investigate critical questions about the application of genomic sequencing to clinical care of individual patients, from generation of genomic sequence data, to interpretation and translation of the data for the physician, to communication to the patient, including an examination of the ethical and psychosocial implications of bringing broad genomic data into the clinic.

This project will identify and address ethical and practical barriers to qualitative data sharing (QDS) in health sciences research. Qualitative research has unique value in understanding health behaviors and traits that are stigmatized and hidden such as risk factors for HIV or a genetic propensity to addiction. Accordingly, a lot of qualitative data are sensitive, and the data are provided within relationships of trust.

The North Coast Conference on Precision Medicine is a national annual mid-sized conference series held in Cleveland, Ohio. The conference series aims to serve as a venue for the continuing education and exchange of scientific ideas related to the rapidly evolving and highly interdisciplinary landscape that is precision medicine research. The topics for each conference coincide with the national conversation and research agenda set by national research programs focused on precision medicine.

ELSI.hub (a National Center for ELSI Resources and Analysis) is a collaboration between Stanford University, Columbia University and partners at the Hastings Center and Harvard University, whose mission is to enhance the production and use of ELSI research by the ELSI community and other stakeholders.