Friday, October 9, 2026
Hyunghoon (Hoon) Cho, Ph.D. will present "Enabling Collaborative Genomic Studies with Privacy" from 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m. EDT.
About the Seminar
The sensitive nature of genomic data poses major challenges for data sharing and collaboration in biomedicine. Traditional safeguards often lead to data silos, hindering large-scale analysis. I will describe our recent work on secure federated (SF) algorithms, which combine cryptography and distributed computation to enable collaborative genomics research without compromising privacy. I will showcase practical tools we have developed for key tasks, including genome-wide association studies (Nature Genetics, 2025) and inference of genetic relatedness (Genome Research, 2024). Finally, I will discuss our ongoing efforts to deploy these methods across large-scale biobanks and highlight broader opportunities for privacy-enhancing technologies in biomedical data sharing.
About the Speaker
Hyunghoon (Hoon) Cho, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics & Data Science and of Computer Science at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT in 2019. Previously, he received his M.S. and B.S. with Honors in Computer Science from Stanford University. His research focuses on overcoming key computational challenges in analyzing massive and distributed biomedical data, developing modern tools based on applied cryptography and machine learning. He is especially interested in building privacy-preserving, scalable AI and mathematical models to unlock insights from complex genomic data. He is a recipient of the NIH Director's Early Independence Award.
About the Seminar Series
The seminar is open to the public and registration is required each month. Individuals who need interpreting services and/or other reasonable accommodations to participate in this event should contact Allison Hurst at 301-670-4990. Requests should be made at least five days in advance of the event.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Data Science Strategy hosts this seminar series to highlight examples of data sharing and reuse on the second Friday of each month at noon ET. The monthly series highlights researchers who have taken existing data and found clever ways to reuse the data or generate new findings. A different NIH institute or center will also share its data science activities each month.