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  • NEWS FEATURE

Single-cell sequencing edges into clinical trials

Parsing the DNA of individual cells gives a higher-resolution view of health and disease.
  1. Amanda B. Keener

    1. Freelance science journalist, Littleton, Colorado, USA

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Photo courtesy of Nicholas Navin

In late June, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced the recipients of $68 million in funding to create the Human Cell Atlas (HCA), a genetic map of the cells that make up a healthy human. Each of the 38 international research groups will tackle an organ or system, such as the heart, immune system and gastrointestinal tract. Some will catalog the same tissues, but from different populations of people. Using samples from donated blood, deceased organ donors, plastic surgery and more, the group plans to build a reference map of what ‘healthy’ looks like from the perspective of our cells.

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Nature Medicine 25, 1322-1326 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41591-019-00017-6

Correction: In the HTML version of this article originally published, an institution name read “Max Delbrük Center for Molecular Biology” instead of “Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine.” The error has been corrected in the print, PDF and HTML versions of the article.

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