Human Developmental Cell Atlas

The Human Developmental Cell Atlas (HDCA) is a Swedish initiative within the Human Cell Atlas (HCA), one of the largest international scientific projects. The project aim is to create a comprehensive molecular atlas of human prenatal development, describing every cell type in detail and showing their spatial and temporal distributions in three dimensions. Each cell’s molecular signature will provide deeper insight into how variations and deviations contribute to health and disease. In addition, the atlas will allow us to identify exactly where and when disease-associated genes are active in our body and analyze the regulatory mechanisms that create organs and tissues. 

We are building the human developmental atlas primarily focusing on the first trimester, which span the most important events of embryogenesis: formation of the nervous system and peripheral organs, birth of most cell types, and the first steps of maturation of cells into their adult forms.

To accomplish this, we are using state-of-the-art technologies established at SciLifeLab, including single-cell RNA, protein and spatial techniques. The project is organized, located and managed at SciLifeLab and you can read more about the project at the the HDCA’s website.


The Team

  • Emma Lundberg lab
  • Joakim Lundeberg lab
  • Mats Nilsson lab
  • Sten Linnarsson lab
  • Erik Sundström lab
  • Christer Samakovlis lab

Do you have further questions about the HDCA project?
Please visit our external website: https://hdca-sweden.scilifelab.se
Or contact us at [email protected]