Federated discovery and sharing of genomic data using Beacons

To the Editor — The Beacon Project ( https://github.com/ga4gh-beacon/ ) is a Global Alliance for Genomics & Health (GA4GH) 1 initiative that enables genomic and clinical data sharing across federated networks. The project is working toward developing regulatory, ethics and security guidance to ensure proportionate safeguards for distribution of data according to the GA4GH-developed “Framework for Responsible Sharing of Genomic and Health-Related Data” 2 . Here we describe the Beacon protocol and how it can be used as a model for the federated discovery and sharing of genomic data.