Sharing dbGaP Data in a Cloud Environment

NIH policy

Here is the NIH policy regarding sharing among investigators at different institutions (Data Access, Question #10):

How can investigators share controlled-access human data and analyses with approved collaborators at different institutions while remaining compliant with the Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) Policy?

All sharing of controlled-access data with collaborators must be consistent with the GDS Policy and the NIH Security Best Practices for Controlled-Access Data Subject to the NIH Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) Policy. Controlled-access data may be shared with collaborators at other institutions if they have obtained approval to access the data through their own dbGaP project request. Such collaborators should be listed on the project request as external collaborators for both projects. Data may be encrypted and mailed to approved collaborators on a hard drive, or shared with approved collaborators over a virtual private network or in a cloud environment, as described in the NIH Security Best Practices for Controlled-Access Data Subject to the NIH Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) Policy .

See TOPMed guidance (section E) on how to set up a group of collaborators (i.e. “sharing group”) who will share dbGaP data in a common repository, under the mechanism described above.

Example of how this mechanism might be used to share TOPMed genotypic and phenotypic data

As shown in the diagram below, a group of investigators decide to form a sharing group.  They submit coordinated applications (Data Access Requests) to dbGaP according to TOPMed guidance (section E). Once the applications of all investigators have been approved, one or more of the investigators assign individuals (“downloaders”) to download the data from the TOPMed Exchange Area(s) may include source phenotypes to be harmonized by members of the sharing group. All of these data types may be brought together in a cloud for harmonization and cross-study analysis. All members of the sharing group (and others they designate from their own institutions) can access the data in the cloud repository; this includes members who do not directly download data (e.g. investigators 2 and 4 in the diagram). Although the diagram shows sharing in a cloud, the data may also be shared by members of the sharing group through other mechanisms, as indicated by the NIH policy statement above.