The Washington Post
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is donating $100 million of his fortune to launch what he calls an “industrial-scale” effort to understand the basic building block of all living things: the cell.
The funds will go to the creation of a new institute based in Seattle that will construct a comprehensive visual database and predictive model of different types of cells, from cancer-ridden ones to neurons— an effort that Allen said he hopes will help accelerate research into medical treatments and cures around the world.
In a phone interview prior to the announcement of the gift on Monday, Allen said that there has been much research in recent years on genes and how they influence disease, but there is a gap in knowledge of the intermediate step: How do those genes influence the composition, shape and functioning of cells – the smallest units of life with the ability to replicate independently— and how do those variations affect disease?
“Cells are fundamental to every known human disease. … If you can get a better understanding of how those cell processes come into focus, that can give you further insight into normal cell functioning and disease states that everyone wants to attack,” Allen said.
Allen said that while someone who is well-versed in computer science has a pretty good sense of the internal workings of a computer, that’s impossible for biological systems. “There is just so much happening that you have to model it to really understand it,” he said.
The new cell research center will be led by Rick Horwitz, a former University of Virginia associate vice president for research, and will bring together biologists, microscopy experts, data scientists and others from a diverse set of fields under one roof. It will start with a group of around 20 scientists but has plans to hire up to 70 within the first three years.
The Allen Institute for Cell Science will initially focus on what are known as induced pluripotent stem or IPS cells. These cells, which are derived directly from adult tissue, are special because they are believed to have the ability to transform themselves into any other cell type in the body. IPS cells hold tremendous promise for drug discovery and regenerative medicine but while they have become a popular subject of study by scientists in recent years, there’s a lot we still don’t know about how they work.
Horwitz, a cell biology professor who helped launch the University of Virginia’s big data initiative, described a cell as “a system of molecular machines— many, many machines and each of these machines is really complicated.”
“People have studied individual systems but no one has tried to integrate it. It’s a huge project. It takes a multi-disciplinary team,” he said.
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