Amazon Cloud and life science institute collaborate to map entire human brain

SEATTLE, Washington – Researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have teamed up with Amazon Web Services to map the human brain.

 The Seattle-based research institute said mapping the brain will pave the way for better diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.

 In a statement issued Wednesday, it said the mapping will help treat Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases as well.

“The brain is our most complex organ. It’s also the most difficult in terms of access to study. Datasets gathered for brain research are extensive, but disparate—and often don’t exist in a universal scientific language,” said the statement.

There are hundreds of billions of cells in the brain. Therefore, mapping brain cells means collecting and studying huge amounts of data.

 The National Institutes of Health will fund the project using Amazon Web Services (AWS) technology.

 Using AWS artificial intelligence and machine learning services, cloud computing will analyze and store large and complex data from 200 billion cells of the human brain.

The study for the platform is being led by Ed Lein, a senior research scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science.

“Despite a huge amount of investment, we haven’t yet come up with solutions for the main brain disorders,” said Lein. 

“We’re awash in information, but it’s not centralized or synthesized,” he added. 

Lein is supported by a network of neuroscientists from 17 institutes worldwide.

 The Allen Institute will work on developing the Brain Knowledge Platform over the next five years.

 Lein says it is still in the early stages, but the potential of the technology is immense.