Box 1. Guiding principles of GAIN

GAIN will use the most rigorous scientific approaches and maintain the highest ethical standards, as guided by the following principles:

• The greatest public benefit will be achieved if GAIN results are made immediately available for research use by any interested and qualified investigator or organization, within the limits of providing appropriate protection of research participants.
• Discovery of genetic variants related to health and disease and their translation into effective diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive strategies should be expedited.
• The best available human studies of diseases and traits, chosen to achieve programmatic balance among diseases, should be used for this discovery process.
• Findings supported or enabled by GAIN should be relevant and applicable to all population subgroups and segments of society.
• Investigators granted access to GAIN data should ensure confidentiality of study participants and follow any limitations specified by their informed consent.
• Intellectual contributions and efforts of investigators submitting samples should be appropriately recognized by any user of GAIN data, consistent with the principles that guide the use of other community resource projects within the genomics field.
• Access to GAIN data should be made available to GAIN partners and contributing investigators and other users at the same time and through the same access approval mechanisms.