Introduction

A recent perspective in The American Journal of Human Genetics (Howley et al., 2025) discusses the rapid expansion of national and international precision medicine initiatives and their integration with health systems to accelerate clinical implementation of precision medicine. The authors focus on seven ongoing, major initiatives to identify shared priorities, challenges, and opportunities that will likely shape the future of genomic medicine, globally. Notably, Lifebit powers the Trusted Research Environments (TREs) for three of the seven that are discussed: Genomics England, TRUST in Singapore (PRECISE), and the Danish National Genome Center.  The authors identify general priorities that are common between these initiatives. In this blog, we explore how Lifebit’s federated, cloud-native TRE solutions, which break down traditional barriers in biomedical research, align with these priorities, demonstrating how Lifebit is critical for bringing to fruition the goals of precision medicine.

1 From Research to Real-World Genomic Medicine: The Role of Data Infrastructure

National genomics programs are increasingly focusing on building infrastructure that supports both research and clinical implementation and using real-world data from electronic health records (EHRs) to inform research. Lifebit plays a key role in enabling scalable, secure platforms that support these goals with the Lifebit Federated Platform.

Genomics England’s TRE provides a secure, cloud-based infrastructure for global researchers to access and analyze genomic data without moving it from the UK, while the Danish National Genome Center’s Federated TRE enables Danish researchers to work with sensitive genomic data within Denmark’s High-Performance Computing (HPC) environment, ensuring compliance with national regulations. Similarly, Singapore’s TRUST Platform, powered by Lifebit, integrates genomic data with electronic health records (EHRs) to generate real-world clinical insights while maintaining strict privacy and security. Lifebit’s federated approach ensures that genomic data remains within national borders while still enabling collaborative, large-scale research—driving the future of global precision medicine.

2 Future-Proofing Genomic Research

Sustainable funding strategies and the adoption of emerging technologies are critical for ensuring continued innovation of national genomics initiatives. The Lifebit Federated Platform is flexible enough to adapt to changing research priorities, regulatory requirements, and advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). As a cloud-native, federated solution, the Lifebit Federated Platform can scale and dynamically allocate resources without requiring major infrastructure overhauls​, thereby future-proofing organizations. 

The integration of multi-modal data (genomics, pathology, imaging) requires fit-for-purpose, scalable infrastructure. The Lifebit Federated Platform enables secure querying and analysis while maintaining data sovereignty.  As part of the EHDEN consortium, Lifebit and Genomics England are enhancing and improving data usability and interoperability by standardizing multi-modal datasets to the OMOP common data model, using AI technology, ensuring that genomic, clinical, and imaging data can be seamlessly integrated, queried, and analyzed within the Genomics England TRE. In Singapore, the TRUST platform, provided by Lifebit, seamlessly integrates genomic data with EHRs to ensure interoperability for future clinical applications, supports high-throughput sequencing and data processing to adapt to future genomics advancements. By providing a flexible, federated platform, Lifebit ensures long-term usability, security, and scalability, positioning Singapore at the forefront of precision medicine innovation.

3 Public Engagement and Ethical Governance in Genomics

Howley et al.’s analysis addresses the need for meaningful participant engagement and ethical oversight of genomics programs. Consequently, national genomics programs are shifting towards co-designing initiatives with communities, ensuring genomic research aligns with public interests​.

For the first recorded instance of multi-party federation in the UK between the Lifebit-powered TREs of NIHR Cambridge BRC and Genomics England, Patient Public Involvement & Engagement (PPIE) was embedded into this project and involved running focus groups and questionnaires to gauge patient-participant opinions on data-sharing matters demonstrating the importance of community engagement and transparency to advance precision medicine and research.

4 Advancing Data Diversity and Representation

The paper/study highlights how research conducted in small, homogenous cohorts often leads to inaccurate associations between genetic variants and disease risk, resulting in missed diagnoses, unnecessary treatments, and a lack of actionable findings—ultimately limiting the clinical utility of precision medicine. In response, major initiatives are prioritizing data diversity and representation to improve research accuracy and clinical outcomes. 

Lifebit’s federated approach plays a critical role in advancing these efforts by enabling the secure connection and analysis of diverse genomic datasets without centralizing or relocating sensitive data. By enabling seamless collaboration across globally distributed datasets while maintaining full data sovereignty, Lifebit ensures that underrepresented populations are included in genomic research, leading to more equitable and impactful precision medicine discoveries.

Summary

The insights from this perspective highlight the critical role of scalable, ethical, and secure data infrastructure in the future of genomics. Lifebit proudly provides the Federated Trusted Research Environment for some of the world’s leading genomics initiatives, ensuring that they:

• Facilitate international collaboration while enabling secure, federated access to genomic datasets, while protecting data sovereignty and complying with regulations

• Future-proof genomic research with flexible, interoperable and scalable technologies as well as continuous innovation to keep pace with technological advancements

• Support ethical participant engagement and governance, and equity in the implementation of genomic medicine 

As national programs continue to evolve, Lifebit remains committed to empowering researchers and healthcare providers with cutting-edge infrastructure for genomic medicine

Source: The expanding global genomics landscape: Converging priorities from national genomics programs. Howley, Caitlin et al. The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 0, Issue 0.