By Jennifer Kennedy 

April 12, 2016 | Making the case for industry-led standards and more open and transparent data sharing at the opening plenary session at last week’s Bio-IT World Conference and Expo in Boston, Heidi Rehm, Ph.D., Director at Partners HealthCare Laboratory for Molecular Medicine and medical director at the Broad Institute Clinical Research Sequencing Platform, discussed the growing needs for improved clarity and consistency of genetic data for clinical and research purposes.

“In order to improve our knowledge of DNA variation and consistency in variant classification, it will require a massive effort in data sharing,” Rehm said. Likening the idea to crowdsourcing—or building on a community-driven approach—Rehm presented a summary of national and international efforts to develop better standards for increased data sharing.

Read more at Bio-IT World.