Amazon cloud, bioscience institute partner to map whole human brain

Amazon cloud, bioscience institute partner to map whole human brain

Project aims at mapping entire brain at cellular resolution, creating biggest open source brain cell database worldwide

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) – Amazon’s cloud computing platform and bioscience research organization Allen Institute have partnered to map the whole human brain, the tech firm announced in a statement.

The Seattle-based Allen Institute’s “Brain Knowledge Platform” aims to make a new map of the entire brain at cellular resolution and use this to create the largest open source database of brain cell data in the world, it said on Wednesday. The platform will be the first of its kind to compile and standardize massive datasets on the structure and function of mammal brains, it added.

The database will pave the way for better diagnosis and treatment of mental and neurological disorders and diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, that see slow progress in treatment.

“The brain is our most complex organ. It’s also the most difficult in terms of access to study. Datasets gathered for brain research are extensive, but disparate—and often don’t exist in a universal scientific language,” said the statement.

The National Institutes of Health will fund the project using Amazon Web Services (AWS) technology. Using AWS’s artificial intelligence and machine learning services, cloud computing will analyze and store large and complex data from 200 billion cells stemming from the human brain.

“Despite a huge amount of investment, we haven’t yet come up with solutions for the main brain disorders,” said Ed Lein, a senior investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. “We’re awash in information, but it’s not centralized or synthesized.”

“Chemistry has the periodic table. Genomics has the human genome map, which has been transformative. Neuroscience needs a similar foundational resource, which the brain knowledge platform will help to create,” he added.

The study for the platform will be led by Lein and a network of neuroscience researchers from 17 institutes worldwide.

The platform, in addition, will try to draw connections between different species in brain research, which, hopefully, will eventually integrate information across all mammalian biology.


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