WIKIMEDIA, INTERNET ARCHIVE BOOK IMAGESOver the next decade, researchers will compile a comprehensive and freely available map of the cells of the human body, complete with descriptions about their anatomy and function, according to a global initiative launched last week (October 14) by a team at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as well as the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the U.K.
“We now have the tools to understand what we are composed of, which allows us to learn how our bodies work, and uncover how all these elements malfunction in disease,” the Broad Institute’s Aviv Regev, who has long advocated for such an atlas, told Reuters. “We believe that a successful description of all the cells in the healthy human body will impact almost every aspect of biology and medicine in the decades to come.”
The human body contains trillions of cells of diverse structures and functions, but just how many cell types there are is up for debate. According to The Atlantic, reference information from the National Institutes of Health says there are about 200 different cell types, such as neurons, cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, and so ...
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