In 2003, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen committed $100 million to brain research
Allen committed $100 million to brain research in 2003, funding the creation of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. Three years later, the institute announced the completion of the atlas, creating a detailed, three-dimensional map covering more than 21,000 genes at the cellular level. Because it has long been used in biomedical research and shares more than 90% of its genes with humans, according to the institute, the mouse was chosen.
Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Its first major project was the Allen Brain Atlas, an effort to map gene activity across the mouse brain. As listed on the website, the data was made publicly available online at no cost, giving scientists around the world access to information that could help them study the brain and disorders including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, schizophrenia and autism. The Allen Institute was created as a private nonprofit organisation, with the aim of supporting research into areas including cognition, language, emotion and memory. Allen institute’s first project was designed to show which genes are active in different parts of the mouse brain. The project combined neuroscience and genomics to create a molecular map of the brain. Scientists could use the information to study how genes relate to different brain regions and functions.
“This project is an unprecedented union of neuroscience and genomics,” Allen said. Harvard professor Catherine Dulac called it “an enormous mine of information” and said its immediate public availability was “absolutely tremendous.” The Atlas was made publicly available at no cost, allowing researchers to access the data online.