IHCC 4th International Cohorts Summit
May 25 – 27, 2021 | Virtual Meeting
The 4th International Cohorts Summit has concluded. A huge thanks to our sponsors, planning committee, speakers, and attendees for making this a successful event! Conference materials are posted below.
About the Event
The International HundredK+ Cohorts Consortium (IHCC) hosted the 4th International Cohorts Summit of global leaders of large-scale longitudinal cohorts on Tuesday, May 25 through Thursday, May 27, 2021, as a virtual event due to ongoing travel and health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event followed the May 2020 3rd International Cohorts Summit and also built upon the strategic planning initiative kicked-off at the IHCC Members Workshop in November 2020. The goals for the summit are detailed below.
Summit Materials
Day 1 Recording
Opening Keynote: Accelerating Science Through Technology and Collaboration
Cori Bargmann, Ph.D., The Rockefeller University and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, USA
Day 2 Recording
Keynote: Vision to the Future – Disruption in Population Health
Mary De Silva, M.Sc., Ph.D., Wellcome Trust, UK
Day 3 Recording
Keynote: Why We Should Invest in African Genomic Variations
Ambroise Wonkam, M.D., University of Cape Town, South Africa
- If you joined us on May 25, 26 & 27 for the summit, please consider completing our post-summit survey to assist us with planning and implementing our next virtual event.
Access Post-Summit Survey
Summit Goals
The goals of the 4th International HundredK+ Cohorts Summit are to galvanize the IHCC around a visionary, long-term strategic plan and a path forward (developed from the results of the November 2020 IHCC Workshop, interviews with a representative sample of IHCC members, industry partners and funders, and guidance from the IHCC Strategic Planning Advisory Group) that sets our direction to do the following:
- Continually build the cohorts community through promotion and partnerships with organizations (e.g., International Common Disease Alliance, the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, industry partners) with a specific IHCC commitment to limited-resource settings/low- and middle-income countries (LRS/LMIC) representation on every committee and working group and address resource gaps that prohibit LRC/LMIC cohorts from fully engaging in the science.
- Expand the Cohorts Atlas to provide access to harmonized cohort-level metadata to enable federated data discovery and ultimately make available federated analysis interoperability for research and healthcare applications.
- Enhance the capabilities of all cohorts by leveraging the power of our membership to gain access to large-scale genome sequencing, introducing access to developing digital health technologies, adoption of standardized phenotyping (e.g., PhenX), and harmonization and analysis of environmental exposure data inclusive of climate change (e.g., the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences).
- Guide the IHCC Scientific Agenda to address population health targeted focus areas, such as infectious disease, cardiometabolic disease, mental/cognitive health, and global health crises such as COVID-19 and environmental/genomic risks.
- Expand the consortium’s ability to identify and address key policy issues that prohibit or restrict cross-organizational collaboration including data sharing, data access, health data privacy and issues prohibiting diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Establish educational resources and infrastructure designed to develop capacity in cohort building and cross-cohort data science aimed at strengthening the cohorts’ “workforce for tomorrow” through establishment of a novel IHCC cohorts’ educational platform and providing a forum for exchange of scientific ideas, best practices, and lessons learned.
Please direct questions to ihccinfo@ihccglobal.org.
