The Human Cell Atlas is an international collaborative consortium aiming to create comprehensive reference maps of all human cells. For as long as scientists have been able to observe cells under the microscope, they have been interested in understanding how cells work. For at least 150 years, researchers have been characterizing and cataloging the cells of the human body based on their shape, location, molecules, and function. More recently, it has become possible to classify cells by their expression profiles, that is, the levels at which they express RNA or protein from each gene. However, until the early 2010s, this characterization happened at the level of large chunks of tissue, made of millions or billions of cells, rather than individual cells.
Thanks to new single cell genomics and spatial imaging technologies developed since the late 2000s and early 2010s, it is now possible to measure gene expression profiles in individual cells. These large scale data can be used with machine learning algorithms to decipher how the cells differ from and interact with their neighbors, and how they form and function in the tissue. This now allows scientists to identify and understand cell types in unprecedented detail, resolution and breadth.
The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) is an international group of researchers using a combination of these new technologies to create cellular reference maps with the position, function and characteristics of every cell type in the human body. We believe the work of the HCA is immensely beneficial to all of humanity,
Below is a video by The HuBMAP, one of HCA’s data portals by US National Institutes of Health (NIH), explaining and demonstrating the need, process and benefits of this huge endeavor.