Scientists around the world are collaborating on an ambitious project to construct a Human Cell Atlas — a reference map of all the cells in our body. Why? Many diseases can be traced back to disorders of the cell, and so understanding their molecular characteristics and location inside the body is crucial to better diagnosing and treating diseases.
But it’s a mammoth undertaking. After all, the human body contains over 37 trillion cells, making it hard to precisely pinpoint the drivers of disease.
One platform that’s expediting the process of building cell atlases is Chan Zuckerberg CELL by GENE, an interactive tool that lets researchers around the world analyze — and contribute to — single-cell data sets.