---
type: Conversation
title: Private channel session 1338
description: "slack conversation, 20 messages, 2021-05-07."
tags:
  - conversation
  - slack
medium: slack
message_count: 20
started_at: "2021-05-07T14:35:01"
ended_at: "2021-05-07T15:08:34"
duration_seconds: 2013
sources:
  - { id: slack_pm, resource: /sources/slack-pm.md, title: Slack / Private Message Drop, author: "process:senate-hsgac-release" }
generated: { by: randpaul-corpus-pipeline/1.0, at: "2026-08-01T12:42:27Z" }
status: stable
---

A slack conversation of 20 messages spanning 0h 33m.

# Metadata

- **Started:** 2021-05-07T14:35:01
- **Ended:** 2021-05-07T15:08:34
- **Duration:** 0h 33m
- **Participants:** 2
- **Source:** [slack_pm](/sources/slack-pm.md)
- **Pages:** 760-762

# Participants

* [Andrew Rambaut](/people/andrew-rambaut.md)
* [Edward C. Holmes](/people/edward-c-holmes.md)
* [Kristian G. Andersen](/people/kristian-g-andersen.md)
* [Robert F. Garry](/people/robert-f-garry.md)

# Transcript

**[2021-05-07T14:35:01] Andrew Rambaut:** We should talk - I think we should have labels for VOC/VOIs that are separate from lineages. We have been discussing this at the WHO for a while but as you can imagine it is a mess. The WHO is obsessed with there being 3nomenclatures (Pango, Nextstrain and GISAID) whereas in fact no one uses the other 2. They imagine that their names will become standard but it is not clear they understand what they are trying to label.The important thing is to realise you are labelling a constellation not a lineage or clade (i.e., it is not synonymous with Pango). This is what PHE has got right - B.1.1.7+E484K is a VOC even though it will never be a lineage because it has occurred > 10 times…

**[2021-05-07T14:37:13] Andrew Rambaut:** We are adding a thing into Pangolin that as well as calling a lineage will also call a VOC/VUI based on a set ofdefinition files.

**[2021-05-07T14:38:58] Andrew Rambaut:** The other thing I think we need with VOC/VUI definitions is to have a 'type' genome. The example (preferably early) genome to act as a reference.

**[2021-05-07T14:39:35] Kristian G. Andersen:** Okay, great - we can probably pull from that then. We just made a quick decision to move over to PHE designationsfor VOCs - we'll peg ours to the most current list from them. Problem is, it'll piss off the CDC - but they're behind the curve and we need to do the right thing. Everybody is already moving over to Pango lineages and it's time that GISAID/NextStrain designations go the way of the dodo. Hopefully VOC/VUI can be standardized around a similar'community' driven effort as Pango.

**[2021-05-07T14:40:17] Kristian G. Andersen:** And YES to type genome - I have been bugging our team for introducing exactly that feature for weeks. Are you planning on having this reflected somewhere?

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Andrew Rambaut:** We should collaborate on this - we have some githubs and the idea would be to store the definition JSON files wecould all pull off. SLACK_000975

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Kristian G. Andersen:** Let's. Do you have a Slack channel set up? We should have Laura and Karthik join on our side

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Andrew Rambaut:** I can do a slack share link into the Pango Slack

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Kristian G. Andersen:** Cool - that'd be great

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Andrew Rambaut:** Can you give me their email addresses here?

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Andrew Rambaut:** Which email do you use for slack?

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Kristian G. Andersen:** 

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Kristian G. Andersen:** Laura/Karthik might suggest a couple of others join too, but this is the core team.

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Andrew Rambaut:** OK. Easily done. Invitations sent.

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Andrew Rambaut:** By the way, WHO is planning to call them 'alpha', 'beta', 'gamma' etc. which is probably a good a system as any butwe could still influence this.

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Andrew Rambaut:** I hate the PHE names because they look so similar.

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Kristian G. Andersen:** Yeah, alpha, beta, gamma could work - we talked about the need for different "levels" and the ability to move between groups (e.g., "CA" variant moving from VOC (which it should never have been...) down to a lower classification). The PHE names are indeed bad - I always have to cross-reference back to the table also displaying the pangolin names (but as you say, we need to label constellations, not necessarily lineages).

**[2021-05-07T14:42:58] Andrew Rambaut:** Yes - that is what we can put in the JSON definition files. We could have current PHE classification, WHO, CDC etc.Linking to lineages (possibly more than one - but probably not) where it is found.

**[2021-05-07T15:05:03] Andrew Rambaut:** We also planned to have a big table of the individual mutations with information about evidence for phenotypic effect etc. (some spike ones are there in 'mutations.csv' but we have all been to busy to work on this). The COG mutationdashboard has a lot: http://sars2.cvr.gla.ac.uk/cog-uk/

**[2021-05-07T15:08:34] Kristian G. Andersen:** Oh, nice - we have been talking about data layers like that too - a lot of interest on the NIH to incorporate immunological data (which, I agree, is key).