In order to make the promises of genomic medicine a reality, various national and international organizations have endorsed responsible genomic data sharing in both clinical and research settings. Sharing individual-level genomic data however could generate various concerns. Individual-level genomic data contains sensitive personal information which are worthy of robust privacy protection. Additionally, further processing of data, originally accumulated for a single project, gives a new twist to the discussion on the adequacy of informed consent mechanism. In order to ensure responsible data sharing, it is crucial to discuss the challenges and promises associated with genomic data sharing with clinicians and the researchers in the field.
On August 31st-September 1st 2017, the University of Leuven will be organizing the interuniversity course on clinical and research genomic data sharing, which aims to discuss the current state of the art in clinical and research genomic data sharing and address the associated ethical, legal and social challenges.
The course is open to public, and is of particular interest to a wide range of participants including Advanced master students, Ph.D. students, postdoctoral researchers, and medical students with a strong interest in genetics as well as engineers with an interest in genomics.
