This week, Scientific American announced ten emerging technologies with innovations that are on the verge of changing society. One of the technologies selected was the Human Cell Atlas, which aims to integrate research exploring the building-blocks of human cells using new emerging technologies. The list of ten emerging technologies was compiled in a collaboration between Scientific American and the World Economic Forum's Expert Network with suggestions from members of the Expert Network, the forum's Global Future Councils and Scientific American's board of advisers...Read more

The G protein-coupled receptor 17 (GPR17) was first identified in samples extracted from the central nervous system. This protein belongs to the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) protein family, whose members serve as important regulators of oligodendrocyte development.

Oligodendrocytes are the cells that mainly provide support and electrically insulate axons in the brain by forming the myelin sheath. During development, these cells progress from oligodendrocyte precursor cells to myelinating mature oligodendrocytes.

GPR17, in particular is an oligodendroglial maturation inhibitor since its stimulation arrests mouse oligodendrocytes at a less differentiated stage...Read more

We would like to thank all participants of the CYTO2017 Image analysis challenge co-organized by the Cell Atlas team. And congratulate the winner, Dr. Peng Qiu from Georgia Tech, who at the time of the challenge closing had the top solution for both Challenge 2 and Challenge 3.

Though submissions this year were high-quality, and showcased the multitude of approaches to such a challenge, there is still large room for improvements in the results and some sub-challenges remain entirely unsolved. Therefore, we have decided to keep the challenge open for another year! Improvements in downloads and scoring schemes will be made...Read more

Emma Lundberg Director of the Human Cell Atlas, will present a keynote lecture on June 14th, entitled ”The Cell Atlas: A subcellular map of the human proteome” on the 32ndCongress of the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry in Boston, USA.

On this occassion, the CYTO Congress together with the Human Protein Atlas have organized a challenge for analysis of the images from the Cell Atlas, culminating in presentation of results in the final conference session, where participants will present their analytical methods and findings...Read more

In this week’s post, we will highlight proteins specifically expressed in a tissue with extensive plasticity - the female mammary glands. The evolutionary origin of mammary and milk gland-like structures is believed to date all the way back to 300 million years ago, and glandular secretory apocrine-like units in the skin of synapsids, an ancestor to mammals.

The mammary gland develops from the epidermis and is mainly composed of branched columnar and cuboidal epithelial cells that form distinct lobes...Read more

The JAK – or Janus kinases, are intracellular proteins that transduce signals from cytokine receptors via the JAK-STAT pathway. More specifically the JAK family phosphorylates the receptor and thus activates downstream proteins, including transcription factors called STATs (Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription). These transcription factors then migrate to the nucleus where they regulate transcription of many genes with diverse function, including cell growth, development and differentiation...Read more