China constructs human cell lineage facility

Imagine a breathing, drug-testing, metabolizing digital twin of yourself that could predict how treatments will work before you take them. This isn't science fiction: China just announced a groundbreaking "human cell lineage" mega-facility in South China's Guangdong, designed to crack the code of human development, disease, and aging.

Led by Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the facility aims to map the spatiotemporal evolution of cells throughout the human lifespan, develop a large-scale AI model for digital cells and construct a digital physiological human. 

This initiative will pioneer new paradigms in biomedical testing and open up new frontiers in biopharmaceutical R&D. Additionally, it is expected to yield a series of innovative scientific achievements and products in reagents, instruments, software and data, the institute said in a statement. 

"This is essentially compiling a comprehensive 'cellular family tree' of life, enabling both scientists and the public to clearly trace each cell's journey from origin to present state," Sun Fei, deputy director of the institute and the Chief Commander/Engineer of the facility told Science and Technology Daily.

Researchers explained that current global innovative drug development faces three critical challenges: prolonged timelines, exorbitant costs and dismal clinical success rates. A fundamental limitation lies in the predominant use of animal models, which fail to accurately replicate human physiological responses.

This facility will pioneer a transformative solution, creating "digital twins" of patients using their cellular data. This breakthrough platform will simulate treatment outcomes in silico before clinical implementation, ushering in a new era of truly personalized, precision medicine, according to the Science and Technology Daily report. 

It is one of 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for the national major science and technology infrastructure. The facility is expected to be completed within four and a half years, and will have a total floor area exceeding 50,000 square meters, the institute said. 

The institute wrote in the statement that the cell is the fundamental unit of life, and the human body is composed of approximately 40 trillion cells. These cells originate from a single fertilized egg, undergoing dynamic processes, including proliferation, differentiation and aging, throughout their entire life cycle. This complete trajectory of cellular evolution is referred to as "cell lineage."

Deciphering cell lineage is hailed as the key to unlocking the mysteries of life's development and evolution, the institute said. 

The facility will focus on pioneering technologies and equipment development, including live-sample preservation, spatial multi-omics and advanced imaging. By integrating cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, it will establish a digital cell lineage framework spanning three key dimensions: development, disease and aging, the Guangzhou-based institute said.

According to the institute, the facility will compose of an automated production pipeline for cell lineage mapping, integrating standardized workflows including sample preparation, biospecimen storage, multi-scale imaging analysis, multi-omics profiling, data processing and validation. 

This system will systematically acquire multi-modal datasets encompassing radiomics, spatial omics, transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics and ultrastructural characterization. The resulting output will be a digitally-indexed, twin-referenced cell lineage repository, the institute said in its statement.

The institute said that upon completion, the facility is expected to provide comprehensive support for theoretical innovation and industrial development in the life sciences and healthcare sectors.