Machines Like Us

Take the most complex organ in the human body, superimpose the legacy of biology’s biggest research project, and what have you got? An unprecedented brain map that is set to transform studies of neuroscience and brain disease.

The Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington, US, is today launching a four-year, $55-million effort to build a three-dimensional map documenting the levels of activity of some 20,000 different genes across the human brain.

“The Human Genome Project was the ‘what’, and our project is the ‘where’,” says Allan Jones, the institute’s chief scientific officer.

Read full story at NewScientist.