How can we begin to understand the way the brain works? The same way we begin to understand a city: by making a map. In this visually stunning talk, Allan Jones shows how his team is mapping which genes are turned on in each tiny region, and how it all connects up. As CEO of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, Allan Jones leads an ambitious project to build an open, online, interactive atlas of the human brain.
The Allen Institute for Brain Science — based in Seattle, kickstarted by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen — has a mission to fuel discoveries about the human brain by building tools the entire scientific community can use. As CEO, one of Allan Jones’ first projects was to lead the drive to create a comprehensive atlas of the brain of a mouse. Flash forward to April 2011, when the Allen Institute announced the first milestone in its online interactive atlas of the human brain, showing the activity of the more than 20,000 human genes it contains. It’s based on a composite of 15 brains, since every human brain is unique.
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