The Human Cell Atlas: making ‘cell space’ for disease, 2019, Ponting

Open access at http://dmm.biologists.org/content/early/2019/01/14/dmm.037622

 

I hate to be a killjoy but I think we used to do this forty years ago. It was called histochemistry done by people with a solid histological training. All the complex pattern identification functions were done by what Turing called 'computers' - human brains. They are quite good at it! We sorted out RA by looking at complex biochemical patters across a cell space called a microscope slide. That in the end allowed us to work out a system dynamics for a disease with 55 linked steps.

 

Is this a clue? Presumably analysis of such large numbers would only be feasible using modern computing power?

 

A histologist's eye regularly analyses tens of millions of cells without even thinking.

 

I just came upon this separately from this thread.
Here is a link to the project.