Working Groups

In addition to the HCA committees, the HCA has the following Working Groups.

The Analysis Working Group (AWG) organises working groups, data analysis teams, meetings, jamborees, and recommends experimental designs, analysis frameworks and best practices for different aspects and needs of the HCA, from data collection to the Data Coordination Platform (DCP). The AWG is co-chaired by Dana Pe’er and John Marioni.

The Data Ecosystem Oversight Group (DEO) provides guidance to, and oversight of, all aspects of the HCA data ecosystem. This includes data ingestion and storage, the integration of datasets, cell type annotation, and the HCA Data Portal. The DEO ensures the coordination of these and other data ecosystem activities and recommends improvements to the HCA Organising Committee (OC). It also defines standards around data and metadata formats and recommends these standards to the OC for approval.  The DEO is co-chaired by Chloe Villani and Shyam Prabhakar.

The Ethics Working Group (EWG)  has been set up to examine the ethical governance issues related to the HCA. The EWG does not provide legal opinions.

The role of the EWG includes:

  • Discussing ethics-legal issues relevant to the HCA particularly in relation to its global reach;
  • Providing input and commenting on ethics governance documents and tools related to the HCA.

The EWG reports to the HCA Organising Committee (OC).  The EWG is an advisory group and is not responsible for decisions made with respect to the structure or governance of the HCA.  The EWG is co-chaired by Ma’n Zawati, Barbara Wold and Roderic Guigo.

The Equity Working Group (EqWG) aims to promote and support progress towards equity in the HCA. The EqWG seeks to engage the global community spanning diverse geographic and ethnic groups to drive inclusive representation and participation, and promote equal benefit from the HCA. The EqWG’s initial focus is on empowerment to participate in the HCA through outreach, education, and training.  The EqWG is co-chaired by Alex K Shalek, Partha Majumder and Musa Mhlanga.

The Diversity Task Force (DTF) will examine issues related to the tracking and sampling of diversity in HCA data.  The DTF is co-chaired by Shyam Prabhakar, Kian Hong Kock and Sophia George.

The function of the Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) is to ensure communication and coordination between the scientific leadership, operational management, and representative funders. The JCC will evaluate and report back to the Funders Committee and HCA OC on the overall scope and executional success of the HCA operations in achieving the HCA’s mission, with special attention to ethical and legal matters.  The JCC is co-chaired by Aviv Regev and Sarah Teichmann.

The Funders Collective  is comprised of individuals from funding organisations with a shared interest in the goals of the HCA who desire to work in a collaborative manner.

The Standards and Technology Working Group (STWG) have two goals:

  • bring together groups and centres to compare and disseminate existing methods; and
  • ensure that new techniques are developed and adopted through a combination of academic efforts and the activities of technology companies that are eager to help the HCA and to learn from its collective expertise and experiences.

The STWG is co-chaired by Holger Heyn, Orit Rozenblatt-Rosen and Xiaowei Zhuang

ANALYSIS WORKING GROUP (AWG)

Gary Bader

University of Toronto, Canada

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Barbara Engelhardt

Princeton University

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Peter Kharchenko

Harvard Medical School, USA

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Dana Pe'er

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute, USA

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Rahul Satija

New York Genome Center, USA

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Oliver Stegle

EMBL-EBI, UK

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Amos Tanay

Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

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Fabian Theis

Helmholtz-Munich, Germany

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Nir Yosef

UC Berkeley, USA

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DATA ECOSYSTEM OVERSIGHT GROUP (DEO)

Mariana Boroni

Instituto Nacional de Câncer - INCA, Brazil

Muzlifah Haniffa

Wellcome Sanger Institute/Newcastle University, UK

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Maria Kasper

Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

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Matthias Kretzler

Michigan University, USA

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Ed Lein

Allen Institute, USA

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Vinicius Maracaja Coutinho

University of Chile, Chile

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Angela Oliveira Pisco

Insitro, USA

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Joseph Powell

Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Australia

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Shyam Prabhakar

Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore

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John Randell

USA office

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Lucia Robson

UK office

Alexandra-Chloe Villani

Massachusetts General Hospital, USA, Harvard Medical School, USA and Broad Institute, USA

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ETHICS WORKING GROUP (EWG)

Kristin Ardlie

Broad Institute, USA

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Fabiana Arzuaga

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Andrea Beckel-Mitchener

NIH, USA

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Alex Bernier

McGill University, Canada

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Jasper Bovenberg

The Netherlands

Sarion Bowers

Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK

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Gideon Cornel Msee

University of Edinburgh, UK

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Jantina de Vries

University of Cape Town, South Africa

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Stacey Donnelly

Broad Institute, USA

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Henry Greely

Stanford Law School, USA

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Roderic Guigo

CRG, Spain

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Emily Kirby

McGill University, Canada

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Mayumi Kusunose

RIKEN, Japan

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Katherine Littler

Wellcome Trust, UK

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Partha Majumder

John C. Martin Centre for Liver Research & Innovations and Liver Foundation, West Bengal, India

Fruzsina Molnár-Gábor

Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Germany

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Ntobeko Ntusi

University of Cape Town, South Africa

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Mark Phillips

McGill University, Canada

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Emmanuelle Rial-Sebbag

Université de Toulouse, France

Andrea Saltzman

Broad Institute, USA

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Barbara Wold

Caltech, USA

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Ma'n Zawati

McGill University, Canada

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EQUITY WORKING GROUP (EqWG)

Sami Al Garawi

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, Middle East

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Gordon Awandare

WACCBIP - University of Ghana, Ghana, Africa

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Alex Bernier

McGill University, Canada

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Alistair Forrest

Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, Australia

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Lucio Freitas-Junior

University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, South America

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Muzlifah Haniffa

Wellcome Sanger Institute/Newcastle University, UK

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Emily Kirby

McGill University, Canada

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Partha Majumder

John C. Martin Centre for Liver Research & Innovations and Liver Foundation, West Bengal, India

Musa M Mhlanga

Radboud University, The Netherlands

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Shyam Prabhakar

Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore

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Senjuti Saha

Child Health Research Foundation, Bangladesh, Asia

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Alex Shalek

MIT | Ragon | Broad, USA

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Christine Wells

University of Melbourne, Australia

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DIVERSITY TASK FORCE (DTF)

Samira Asgari

Icahn School of Medicine, USA

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Ponpan Matangkasombut Choopong

Madihol University, Thailand

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Robert Cook Deegan

Arizona State University, USA

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Gideon Cornel Msee

University of Edinburgh, UK

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Sophia George

University of Miami, USA

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Youssef Idaghdour

NYU Abu Dhabi

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Kian Hong Kock

Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore

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Vinicius Maracaja Coutinho

University of Chile, Chile

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Drew Neavin

Garvan Institute, Australia

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Alycia Noë

McGill University, Canada

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Yukinori Okada

Osaka University and University of Tokyo, Japan

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Shyam Prabhakar

Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore

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Patricia Severino

Albert Einstein Research and Education Institute, Brazil

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JOINT COORDINATING COMMITTEE (JCC)

Geneviève Almouzni

Institut Curie, France

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Piero Carninci

Fondazione Human Technopole, Italy & RIKEN, Japan

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Jonah Cool

CZI, USA

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Christiane Hertz-Fowler

Wellcome, UK

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Christina Kyriakopoulou

European Commission, Belgium

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Marion Mercier

Wellcome, UK

Aviv Regev

Genentech, USA

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Sarah Teichmann

Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, UK

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STANDARD AND TECHNOLOGY WORKING GROUP (STWG)

Kristin Ardlie

Broad Institute, USA

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Piero Carninci

Fondazione Human Technopole, Italy & RIKEN, Japan

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Menna Clatworthy

Cambridge University Hospitals, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge UK

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Wolfgang Enard

Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Germany

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William Greenleaf

Stanford University, USA

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Holger Heyn

CNAG, Spain

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Ed Lein

Allen Institute, USA

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Joshua Levin

Broad Institute, USA

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Emma Lundberg

KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

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Kerstin Meyer

Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK

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Nicholas Navin

University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, USA

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Garry Nolan

Stanford University, USA

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Aviv Regev

Genentech, USA

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Orit Rozenblatt-Rosen

Genentech, USA

Sarah Teichmann

Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, UK

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Thierry Voet

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK

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Xiaowei Zhuang

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA and Harvard University, USA

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