SEATTLE, Dec. 9 (UPI) --
Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen donated $100 million to study the human cell in an effort to better understand human building blocks and their diseases.
The money will specifically go to the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Cell Science. Their first project will be creating computational models of induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS cells, that can transform into epithelial cells that form the inner linings of organs as well as skin. This project, called the Allen Cell Observatory, is intended to find how these cells can be diseased and how to possibly form replacement tissue.
Cells are the fundamental units of life, with every disease we know of affecting particular types of cells,
Allen said in a statement. Scientists have learned a great deal about many of the 50 trillion cells in our bodies over the last decades, but creating a comprehensive, predictive model of the cell will require a different approach.
About 90 percent of cancers are related to epithelial cells. Cancer is caused by a mutation in cells that causes cells to replicate uncontrollably without dying as a healthy cell would. Studying the epithelial cells is potentially a way to see that process in a different light and understand the root cause, thereby putting scientists one step closer to finding a cure.
If you look at cancer, there are a tremendous number of genes turned on or off or mutated. This is also true for autism. What we don't know is which ones are important and which ones are not. The important ones are the ones that actually change how the cell grows, and once we have a better understanding of how this works we'll have a much better idea of which potential targets for new drugs,
said Rick Horwitz, executive director of the institute.
Horwitz said the research and observations of the project will be made publicly available online in an effort to empower research by our colleagues around the world.
The cell is so complex, there is no one that I know ... who actually could do this by themselves,
he said.