Formation | 2003 |
---|---|
Founders | Paul Allen, Jody Allen |
Type | Independent, nonprofit medical research organization (IRS exemption status): 501(c)(3) |
91-2155317 | |
Purpose | Basic science research in neuroscience, cell biology, immunology |
Headquarters | Seattle, Washington, United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Paul Allen, founder Jody Allen, founder, Rui Costa, D.V.M., Ph.D., CEO |
Employees | ~825 |
Website | www |
The Allen Institute is a non-profit, bioscience research institute located in Seattle. It was founded by billionaire philanthropist Paul G. Allen in 2003. The Allen Institute conducts large-scale basic science research studying the brain, cells and immune system in effort to accelerate science and disease research. The organization practices open science, in that they make all their data and resources publicly available for researchers to access. [1] [2]
The Allen Institute's research is focused on neuroscience, through the Allen Institute for Brain Science, founded in 2003, Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics, founded in 2021; cell biology, through the Allen Institute for Cell Science, founded in 2014; [3] broad areas of bioscience and medical research, through The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, founded in 2016; [4] and human immunology, through the Allen Institute for Immunology, founded in 2018. [5] The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group recommends research funding to scientific investigators outside the Allen Institute, while the other three divisions conduct research in-house.
The Allen Institute for Brain Science launched with an initial single scientific project, the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas, [6] which aimed to map gene expression across the entire mouse brain. The publication describing that project, published in 2007, has been cited more than 1,800 times. [7] The Allen Institute for Brain Science has since generated several other large-scale neuroscience projects, focusing on both the mouse and human brains in health and disease. Its most recent open-source projects focus on defining brain cell types in the healthy mouse [8] and human [9] brains through multimodal characterization of neurons and other brain cells, including their connectivity, electrophysiology, morphology and transcriptomic profiles; and on the cellular level of activity in the mouse visual cortex [10] through the Allen Brain Observatory. In 2020, the National Institutes of Health awarded $40.5 million to launch a new research center headquartered at the Allen Institute focused on brain cell types in Alzheimer's disease. [11]
The Allen Institute for Cell Science was modeled on the Allen Institute for Brain Science and was launched to capture a global view of human cells, developing gene-edited, fluorescently tagged human induced pluripotent stem cells [12] that form the backbone of an openly available library of digital microscopy images [13] and computational models [14] to predict cellular organization. The tagged cell lines are available for others in the scientific community to use, [15] and have been used in research on kidney disease [16] and cardiomyocyte function, [17] among others. Ongoing projects at the institute include studies of cardiomyocyte differentiation [18] and mitosis. [19] Cell biology resources from the institute have been used in high school and college biology education, including at Washington State University. [20]
The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group recommends research funding from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to support bioscience and biomedical research. [21] Projects supported by Frontiers Group awards include research on regeneration, [22] gene drives, [23] and human brain evolution, [24] among many others. The Frontiers Group directs research support through two primary award mechanisms: Allen Distinguished Investigator awards, which are typically three-year, $1.5 million awards given to one or a small set of researchers, and Allen Discovery Center awards, which are larger grants given to launch new research centers. [21] To date, four Allen Discovery Centers have been launched. [24] [21]
The Allen Institute for Immunology, was launched with a $125 million donation from Paul G. Allen two months after Allen's death. [5] The Allen Institute for Immunology's initial research focus is on the healthy human immune system and on changes in the immune system in two cancers, multiple myeloma and melanoma, and in three autoimmune diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. [25] The institute does not conduct clinical research, but rather partners with existing clinical research groups at other organizations who collaborate on research and provide patient samples; the institute's research partners are the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of California San Diego with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and the University of Pennsylvania. [21] The institute's executive vice president and director is Ananda Goldrath, Ph.D.
The Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics was launched in November 2021, with a mission to study the neural circuits that support complex behavior. [26] The institute is led by executive vice president Karel Svoboda (scientist).
The Allen Institute employs three core principles that distinguish it from traditional academic laboratory and industry organization settings. Their large-scale, data-rich "big science" projects aim to answer fundamental questions of biology. Cross-functional groups of employees with differing specialties work together in a collaborative "team science" environment. All data and resources generated within the Institute are made publicly available as part of their "open science" model. Notable public resources include the Allen Mouse Brain and Human Brain Atlases. [1] [2]
The Allen Institute Board of Directors is chaired by Jody Allen. Other current board members are Margaret Anderson, Joanne Berger-Sweeney, Ph.D., Phyllis J. Campbell, Alta Charo, J.D., Thomas L Daniel, Ph.D., Carla DewBerry, Steve Hall, Allan Jones, Ph.D., and Michael Stryker, Ph.D. [27]
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is part of the MICrONS program, which is funded by IARPA. The research collaboration aims to map all the synapses in one cubic millimeter of the mouse brain, [30] the largest such connectomics project to date. [31]
The Allen Institute for Brain Science hosts the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network, or BICCN, web data portal. This collaborative effort, funded by the National Institutes of Health, aims to create comprehensive catalogs of brain cell types from mouse, human and monkeys. [32]
The Allen Institute is located in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington and houses the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Allen Institute for Cell Science, the Allen Institute for Immunology, and the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group. The architects of the building were Perkins + Will and construction was conducted by GLY. It is a LEED-Gold certified green building. [33] [34] The building is located at 615 Westlake Ave N and was dedicated on December 4, 2015, [35] and was a runner up for building of the year by the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. [36]
To help facilitate their collaborative team science approach, the six-story building was designed around a central atrium, alternating laboratories with traditional and flexible meeting spaces throughout. [37] The building also includes an auditorium were multiple public events and symposia are held.
The location of the Allen Institute was home to the historic McKay Ford and Pacific auto dealer, built in the early 1920s. [38] During construction the 2,760 piece terra cotta façade was removed and reinstalled upon completion of the building. [39] It houses a craft beer hall with mini golf and other games. [40]
Jaume Plensa's sculpture Mirall was installed outside the building in October 2015. [41] [42] The art work features two large figures, each about 12 feet tall (3.6 metres).
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, psychology, physics, computer science, chemistry, medicine, statistics, and mathematical modeling to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons, glia and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the "epic challenge" of the biological sciences.
Paul Gardner Allen was an American businessman, computer programmer, researcher, film producer, explorer, sports executive, investor and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which was followed by the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Allen was ranked as the 44th-wealthiest person in the world by Forbes with an estimated net worth of $20.3 billion at the time of his death in October 2018.
Neuroinformatics is the emergent field that combines informatics and neuroscience. Neuroinformatics is related with neuroscience data and information processing by artificial neural networks. There are three main directions where neuroinformatics has to be applied:
The Blue Brain Project is a Swiss brain research initiative that aims to create a digital reconstruction of the mouse brain. The project was founded in May 2005 by the Brain Mind Institute of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Its mission is to use biologically-detailed digital reconstructions and simulations of the mammalian brain to identify the fundamental principles of brain structure and function.
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is a division of the Allen Institute, based in Seattle, Washington, that focuses on bioscience research. Founded in 2003, it is dedicated to accelerating the understanding of how the human brain works. With the intent of catalyzing brain research in different areas, the Allen Institute provides free data and tools to scientists.
Connectomics is the production and study of connectomes: comprehensive maps of connections within an organism's nervous system. More generally, it can be thought of as the study of neuronal wiring diagrams with a focus on how structural connectivity, individual synapses, cellular morphology, and cellular ultrastructure contribute to the make up of a network. The nervous system is a network made of billions of connections and these connections are responsible for our thoughts, emotions, actions, memories, function and dysfunction. Therefore, the study of connectomics aims to advance our understanding of mental health and cognition by understanding how cells in the nervous system are connected and communicate. Because these structures are extremely complex, methods within this field use a high-throughput application of functional and structural neural imaging, most commonly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electron microscopy, and histological techniques in order to increase the speed, efficiency, and resolution of these nervous system maps. To date, tens of large scale datasets have been collected spanning the nervous system including the various areas of cortex, cerebellum, the retina, the peripheral nervous system and neuromuscular junctions.
In the field of computational neuroscience, brain simulation is the concept of creating a functioning computer model of a brain or part of a brain. Brain simulation projects intend to contribute to a complete understanding of the brain, and eventually also assist the process of treating and diagnosing brain diseases. Simulations utilize mathematical models of biological neurons, such as the hodgkin-huxley model, to simulate the behavior of neurons, or other cells within the brain.
David Jeffrey Anderson is an American neurobiologist. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. His lab is located at the California Institute of Technology, where he currently holds the position of Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology, TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Leadership Chair and Director, TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience. Anderson is a founding adviser of the Allen Institute for Brain Research, a non-profit research institute funded by the late Paul G. Allen, and spearheaded the Institute's early effort to generate a comprehensive map of gene expression in the mouse brain.
Edward S. Boyden is an American neuroscientist and entrepreneur at MIT. He is the Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology, and a full member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. He is recognized for his work on optogenetics and expansion microscopy. Boyden joined the MIT faculty in 2007, and continues to develop new optogenetic tools as well as other technologies for the manipulation and analysis of brain structure and activity. He received the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
MBF Bioscience is a biotech company that develops microscopy software and hardware for bioscience research and education. MBF Bioscience’s primary location is Williston, Vermont, United States and has offices that market, sell, and support its line of hardware and software products throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
Benaroya Research Institute (BRI) is a Seattle, Washington, non-profit organization that conducts medical research on diseases and immune disorders, including autoimmune disease. It is affiliated with Virginia Mason Health System, and is located on the campus of Virginia Mason Medical Center.
The Allen Institute for AI is a 501(c)3 non-profit research institute founded by late Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen in 2014. The institute seeks to conduct high-impact AI research and engineering in service of the common good. Oren Etzioni was appointed by Paul Allen in September 2013 to direct the research at the institute. After leading the organization for nine years, Oren Etzioni stepped down from his role as CEO on September 30, 2022. He was replaced in an interim capacity by the leading researcher of the company's Aristo project, Peter Clark. On June 20, 2023, AI2 announced Ali Farhadi as its next CEO starting July 31, 2023. The company's board formed a search committee for a new CEO. AI2 also has an active office in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The White House BRAIN Initiative is a collaborative, public-private research initiative announced by the Obama administration on April 2, 2013, with the goal of supporting the development and application of innovative technologies that can create a dynamic understanding of brain function.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to brain mapping:
Jeanne Frances Loring is an American stem cell biologist, developmental neurobiologist, and geneticist. She is the founding Director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine and emeritus professor at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She has founded two biotechnology companies, Arcos BioScience (1999) and Aspen Neuroscience (2018)
Doris Ying Tsao is an American neuroscientist and professor of neurobiology and molecular cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was formerly on the faculty at the California Institute of Technology for 12 years. She is recognized for pioneering the use of fMRI with single-unit electrophysiological recordings and for discovering the macaque face patch system for face perception. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the director of the T&C Chen Center for Systems Neuroscience. She won a MacArthur "Genius" fellowship in 2018. Tsao was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2020. In 2024 she was awarded a Kavli Prize in neuroscience along with Nancy Kanwisher and Winrich Freiwald for the discovery and study of specific areas in the brain that perform facial recognition. After joining UC Berkeley in 2021, her current research explores visual perception in primates in order to understand how the brain creates our sense of reality.
Rosehip neurons are inhibitory GABAergic neurons present in the first layer of the human cerebral cortex. They make up about 10-15% of all inhibitory neurons in Layer 1. Neurons of this type exist in humans, but have not been reported in rodents.
Jeffrey D. Macklis is an American neuroscientist. He is the Max and Anne Wien Professor of Life Sciences in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and Center for Brain Science at Harvard University, Professor of Neurology [Neuroscience] at Harvard Medical School, and on the Executive Committee and a Member of the Principal Faculty of the Neuroscience / Nervous System Diseases Program at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
Kristin K. Baldwin is an American scientist who is a professor at the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University. Her research focuses on using reprogrammed and induced pluripotent stem cells to identify mechanisms and therapies related to human genetic risk for neurologic and cardiovascular disease. Her lab also studies how disease and aging affect the genome; they have used cloning to produce the first complete genome sequence of a single neuron and helped assess the effect of aging on induced pluripotent stem cells that may be used for cell therapies. They also design bespoke neuronal cells in a dish to understand brain function and disease. Baldwin's earlier work included being the first to clone a mouse from a neuron and being one of three groups to first produce an entire mouse from a skin cell by generating induced pluripotent stem cells. epigenetic changes of the genome and the brain.
Hongkui Zeng is the Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, where she leads the creation of open-access datasets and tools to accelerate neuroscience discovery. In 2011-2014 Zeng led the team that created the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas, which indicates which regions of the mouse brain are connected to which other regions. Since then, she has led the creation of atlases of neuronal cell types in the brain of humans and mice.