The Allen Institute, with assistance from the National Institutes of Health, is leveraging AWS technology to build the Brain Knowledge Platform, an effort to further understand the human brain and thereby aid in the diagnosis and treatment of brain-related diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Statistics show that brain-related mental and neurological disorders affect over one-fifth of the U.S. population, resulting in an estimated $1.5 trillion in economic losses annually. Because the brain is the most complex and difficult organ in the human body, and because research data on the brain is vast, diverse, and fragmented, it is difficult to describe using standardized scientific language. This has led to slow progress in research on this organ, and similarly, to a relatively slow pace in the diagnosis and treatment of related diseases.
This is the launch of a five-year human brain mapping project, and the Brain Knowledge Platform has brought together neuroscience researchers from 5 research institutions around the world, hoping to draw a new, complete brain map that is accurate to a single cell, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of brain research.
The Brain Knowledge Platform specializes in single-cell genomics. New technologies for measuring the genetic makeup of individual brain cells are enabling researchers to better understand the complexity of brain cells and the genes that give them their unique functions. These detailed cellular maps will help researchers understand the origins of disease and ultimately help clinicians pinpoint the causes of conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Cloud computing is crucial for transforming the data generated by the brain's approximately 200 billion cells into open-source tools that can be stored, analyzed, and accessed, enabling clinicians to discover treatments for brain diseases. Furthermore, the Brain Knowledge Platform can connect brain research across species and, in the future, will be able to integrate biological data from all mammals.
Shoaib Mufti, director of data and technology at the Allen Institute, will lead the research team and collaborate with AWS to use the brain map to build the world's largest open-source database of brain cells. This database will be the first large-scale dataset to compile and provide standardized data on the structure and function of the mammalian brain.
“The Brain Knowledge Platform will enable our researchers to make new discoveries that are not possible with existing infrastructure,” said Shoaib Mufti, Director of Data and Technology at the Allen Institute. “By connecting these disparate pieces of data, we can explore correlations between data from healthy and diseased brains.”
