The commitment of the human cell atlas to humanity

Ido Amit¹, Kristin Ardlie², Fabiana Arzuaga³, Gordon Awandare⁴, Gary Bader⁵, Alexander Bernier⁶, Piero Carninci^{7

8}, Stacey Donnelly², Roland Eils⁹, Alistair R R Forrest¹⁰, Henry T Greely¹¹, Roderic Guigo¹², Nir Hacohen¹³, Muzlifah Haniffa¹⁴, Emily Sarah Kirby⁶, Bartha Maria Knoppers⁶, Arnold Kriegstein¹⁵, Ed S Lein¹⁶, Sten Linnarsson¹⁷, Partha P Majumder^{18

19}, Miriam Merad²⁰, Kerstin Meyer¹⁴, Musa M Mhlanga²¹, Garry Nolan²², Ntobeko A B Ntusi²³, Dana Pe'er²⁴, Shyam Prabhakar²⁵, Maili Raven-Adams²⁶, Aviv Regev²⁷, Orit Rozenblatt-Rosen²⁷, Senjuti Saha²⁸, Andrea Saltzman², Alex K Shalek^{2

29}, Jay W Shin²⁵, Henk Stunnenberg³⁰, Sarah A Teichmann¹⁴, Timothy Tickle², Alexandra-Chloe Villani³¹, Christine Wells³², Barbara Wold³³, Huanming Yang³⁴, Xiaowei Zhuang³⁵

Affiliations

¹ Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
² Broad Institute, Cambridge, USA.
³ Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁴ West African Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.
⁵ University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
⁶ Centre for Genomics and Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
⁷ RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Hokkaido, Japan.
⁸ Human Technopole, Milan, Italy.
⁹ BIH@Charité - Center for Digital Health, Berlin, Ethiopia.
¹⁰ Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, Perth, Australia.
¹¹ Stanford Law School, Stanford University, California, USA.
¹² Center for Genomic Regulation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.
¹³ Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, Mass General Hospital, Charlestown, USA.
¹⁴ Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK.
¹⁵ University of California, San Fransisco, USA.
¹⁶ University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
¹⁷ Karolinska Institute, Solna, Sweden.
¹⁸ John C. Martin Centre for Liver Research & Innovation, Kolkata, India. ppm@isical.ac.in.
¹⁹ Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India. ppm@isical.ac.in.
²⁰ Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA.
²¹ RIMLS-Science, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
²² Stanford University School of Medicine, California, USA.
²³ University of Cape Town, South Africa, and SAMRC Extramural Unit on Intersection of Noncommunicable Diseases and Infectious Diseases, Cape Town, South Africa.
²⁴ Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA.
²⁵ Genome Institute of Singapore, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore.
²⁶ Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK.
²⁷ Human Cell Atlas, South San Francisco, USA.
²⁸ Child Health Research Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
²⁹ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA.
³⁰ Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
³¹ Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA.
³² University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
³³ California Institute of Technology, California, USA.
³⁴ BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China.
³⁵ Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.

PMID: 39567491
PMCID: PMC11579494
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54306-x

Review

The commitment of the human cell atlas to humanity

Ido Amit et al. Nat Commun. 2024.

. 2024 Nov 20;15(1):10019.

doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54306-x.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
² Broad Institute, Cambridge, USA.
³ Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁴ West African Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.
⁵ University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
⁶ Centre for Genomics and Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
⁷ RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, Hokkaido, Japan.
⁸ Human Technopole, Milan, Italy.
⁹ BIH@Charité - Center for Digital Health, Berlin, Ethiopia.
¹⁰ Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, Perth, Australia.
¹¹ Stanford Law School, Stanford University, California, USA.
¹² Center for Genomic Regulation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.
¹³ Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, Mass General Hospital, Charlestown, USA.
¹⁴ Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK.
¹⁵ University of California, San Fransisco, USA.
¹⁶ University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
¹⁷ Karolinska Institute, Solna, Sweden.
¹⁸ John C. Martin Centre for Liver Research & Innovation, Kolkata, India. ppm@isical.ac.in.
¹⁹ Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India. ppm@isical.ac.in.
²⁰ Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA.
²¹ RIMLS-Science, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
²² Stanford University School of Medicine, California, USA.
²³ University of Cape Town, South Africa, and SAMRC Extramural Unit on Intersection of Noncommunicable Diseases and Infectious Diseases, Cape Town, South Africa.
²⁴ Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA.
²⁵ Genome Institute of Singapore, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore.
²⁶ Global Alliance for Genomics and Health, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK.
²⁷ Human Cell Atlas, South San Francisco, USA.
²⁸ Child Health Research Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
²⁹ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA.
³⁰ Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
³¹ Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA.
³² University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
³³ California Institute of Technology, California, USA.
³⁴ BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China.
³⁵ Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.

PMID: 39567491
PMCID: PMC11579494
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54306-x

Abstract

The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) is a global partnership "to create comprehensive reference maps of all human cells-the fundamental units of life - as a basis for both understanding human health and diagnosing, monitoring, and treating disease." ( https://www.humancellatlas.org/ ) The atlas shall characterize cells from diverse individuals across the globe to better understand human biology. HCA proactively considers the priorities of, and benefits accrued to, contributing communities. Here, we lay out principles and action items that have been adopted to affirm HCA's commitment to equity so that the atlas is beneficial to all of humanity.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: A.R. is an employee of Genentech, a member of the Roche group, and has equity in Roche. A.R. was a co-founder and equity holder of Celsius Therapeutics, is an equity holder in Immunitas, and until July 31, 2020 was an S.A.B. member of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Syros Pharmaceuticals, Neogene Therapeutics and Asimov. A.R. is an inventor on multiple patents related to single cell and spatial genomics. All other authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

**Fig. 1. Geographical distribution of locations of members of the Human Cell Atlas.**
Geographical distribution of locations of members of the Human Cell Atlas, most of whom are scientists engaged in HCA activities or have expressed an interest to participate in the HCA. (see https://www.humancellatlas.org/learn-more/hca-metrics/ for details).

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

1. Majumder, P. P., Mhlanga, M. M. & Shalek, A. K. The human cell atlas and equity: lessons learned. Nat. Med26, 1509–1511 (2020). - PubMed
1. Smillie, C. S. et al. Intra- and inter-cellular rewiring of the human colon during ulcerative Colitis. Cell178, 714–730.e22 (2019). - PMC - PubMed
1. Rood, J. E. et al. Impact of the human cell atlas on medicine. Nat. Med28, 2486–2496 (2022). - PubMed
1. Bustamante, C. D., De La Vega, F. M. & Burchard, E. G. Genomics for the world. Nature475, 163–165 (2011). - PMC - PubMed
1. Popejoy, A. B. & Fullerton, S. M. Genomics is failing on diversity. Nature538, 161–164 (2016). - PMC - PubMed

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The commitment of the human cell atlas to humanity

Affiliations

The commitment of the human cell atlas to humanity

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

Figures

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources