Joy Zhang

For the past few months, I’ve been working with Suzanne Sincavage. Krishna Ravi Srinivas, Mei Lin Fung, Trevor Muehlfelder and Marta Bertolaso on a policy brief for the Think 7, the official think tank group of G7.

I authored the four recommendations and it was my great pleasure to present the policy brief at the Think 7 in Rome last month on behalf of the team. Balanced public engagement, proactive industry engagement, Track II science diplomacy and interdisciplinary capacity building are the 4 areas we consider key to the sustainable and responsible sharing of biodata.

Two projects from GSEJ were cited in the final policy brief: One project, led by Dr. Jill Shepherd (Biosciences), focuses on stem cell donation. The other, my work on genomic solidarity. I’m thrilled to see that two of our proposals on biodata governance are included in  the formal Think 7 communiqué to the G7 presidency. They are:

• Facilitating international summits and working groups to develop common ethical guidelines for human rights protection in cross-border biodata sharing; laying the groundwork for tailored agreements on data governance.
• Supporting interdisciplinary capacity building in clinical and laboratory scientists, statisticians, and algorithm developers to FAIRify data at scale; encouraging genetic counseling training to healthcare providers to serve the public effectively.