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Atlas Building Process

HCA's Biological Networks have developed or are developing 'version 1' Integrated Atlases of tissues, organs and systems that make up the human body. To be considered a 'version 1' Atlas, each atlas must meet a set of criteria designed to ensure high quality, transparency and reproducibility.

All Atlases must:

  1. be robust to known technical factors that can distort biological interpretation
  2. include data from studies considered to be 'landmarks' in the field
  3. be developed collaboratively with members of the Biological Network
  4. include expert-informed cell annotations
  5. have all data and code accessible, including harmonised metadata

If Atlases meet all of these criteria, they are endorsed by the HCA Organizing Committee and made available on the HCA Data Portal.

As the name suggests, version 1 Atlases are only the starting point. Opportunities exist to increase the biological fidelity of version 1 Atlases by adding more data, expanding the featured data modalities, increasing sample diversity and broadening the anatomical coverage. Future versions of Atlases will build on the 'version 1' Atlases and, over time, will become more comprehensive and integrated.

Atlas Building Stages

At any point in time, each Biological Network may have one or more atlases at various stages of development.

In progress

Biological Network Coordinators are processing and integrating all of the relevant data and building the Atlas, according to the above stringent criteria.

Endorsed

Biological Network Coordinators have presented the completed Atlas to the HCA Organizing Committee, who have approved it for publication.

Published

The completed Atlas has been released on the HCA Data Portal.

Technical Details

Atlases are products developed by, and in collaboration with, the HCA Community. Thanks to this consultative approach, they benefit from the community's breath and depth of expertise from cell biologists, to clinicians and computer scientists.

The steps below describe the workflow commonly followed by teams building HCA Atlases. Although presented sequentially, Atlas construction is rarely linear in practice. Many activities proceeded in parallel and teams frequently revisited earlier decisions as new data or technical challenges emerge. The steps can be divided into three broad phases: Phase I, project set-up; Phase II, data integration; and Phase III, biological inquiry and dissemination.