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davidglazer

40 karma · joined January 9, 2016

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davidglazer··on Google Genomics: store, process, explore and share genomic data
Short answer: it's your data. Period.

You decide who can see the data you store, and the default is private. That's spelled out in lots of words in the legal terms somewhere; sorry it wasn't more clear on the website.

Disclaimer: I work for Google Genomics.

davidglazer··on Google Genomics: store, process, explore and share genomic data
I strongly agree with the idea of deconstructing legacy files (BAM, VCF, etc.) and moving to an API-centric (vs. file-format-centric) world. The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH.org) is working on that, with good early success -- for example, IGV (genome browser) can now work with either files or standard APIs, as can Picard (one of the popular suites of genome analysis tools). See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8EvXtz2uiA for details on the Picard support.

Disclaimer: I work on Google Genomics, and on the GA4GH APIs.

davidglazer··on Google Genomics: store, process, explore and share genomic data
We've found that different users want different levels of wrapping -- some (like you) are experts on the low-level tools, and choose to use our low-level compute, storage, and analysis services directly -- I'm biased, but I believe Google Cloud's low-level services have features, like preemptible VMs and nearline storage, that are a great fit for working with genomic data. Others want gateways into bioinformatics-friendly environments like R Studio and iPython; others want wrapped packaged services; others want point-and-click UIs ,etc.

Disclaimer: I work on Google Genomics.

davidglazer··on Google Genomics: store, process, explore and share genomic data
Yes please -- if you're able to share which institution you're with, I'd like to follow up on the BAA hassles. (We do regularly sign BAAs with institutions, but I know that, as with many things legal, simple things don't always stay simple.)

Disclaimer: I work on Google Genomics.