Single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology has driven a quantum leap in our understanding of the heterogeneity and complexity in human tissues. The unprecedented resolution has brought the discoveries of various cell states (transcriptionally distinct groups of cells of the same type) and rare cell populations. Large scale high-throughput scRNA-seq of major organs in the human body generates high resolution human cell atlases, which lays the foundation for advancing research in diseases.

Launched in 2016 in London by Dr Aviv Regev (USA) and Dr Sarah Teichmann (UK), the Human Cell Atlas Consortium strives to create a reference map for every cell type in the human body. The initiative has grown from a group of around 100 international scientists to have more than 2,300 members from over 83 countries around the world. The consortium currently provides community generated multi-omic open data for 27.1 M cells from 4.2 K donors included in 267 projects led by 457 labs in the world (as of 24^th July 2022). The scale of the data and the resource is breath-taking.

How can we find the resources we need? The consortium website provides a list of Publications that are part of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) if you are interested in learning about the latest discoveries in a particular field. If you are a data groupie like me, you’d want to dive directly into the Data page of the website. You can browse various collections from different institutes such as the Wellcome Sanger Institute, European Bioinformatics Institute, and Broad Institute, using their interactive portals. Moreover, you can access the Project Catalogue to find the datasets you want to work on. Instead of going to the original public repositories, you can also access matrices and metadata pre-processed by the HCA Data Coordination Platform (DCP) using the Data Portal Explore page.

Do you have burning questions that you’d like to answer using the vast amount of data that HCA provides? Let’s get right to it then!