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Allen Institute for Brain Science

Allen Institute for Brain Science

Research institute

Appears in 4 stories · Last updated Nov 11, 2026

Stories

Vizgen launches Velocity Lab to generate spatial biology data at scale

New Capabilities

Early Velocity Lab partner using MERSCOPE CoMap

A standard tissue slice for spatial biology is about 10 micrometers thick. Vizgen's new Velocity Lab images up to 100. The Waltham, Massachusetts company launched the foundry on November 10, 2026, to produce spatial data at a scale it says AI models of biology need.

Updated Yesterday

Brain's 'blue spot' sends targeted messages, not broadcasts

New Capabilities

Lead research institution

For decades, neuroscientists assumed the brain's 'blue spot', a tiny cluster of cells in the brainstem, worked like a foghorn, blasting the same chemical signal everywhere. A study from the Allen Institute in Nature shows it is closer to a targeted postal network, sending specific messages along specific routes.

Updated Oct 30

Mice with human brain cells open a new path to studying brain disease

New Capabilities

As of September 2026: Leadership commented on the study's ethical implications

Stanford scientists created mice that grow lab-grown human neurons where their own brain cells were — the deepest integration yet of human tissue into an animal brain. The team depleted roughly 14 million native mouse cortical neurons and gave 4 million human ones room to expand.

Updated Sep 16

Racing toward the digital brain

New Capabilities

As of May 2026: Pursuing whole-brain modeling using detailed biological data

Scientists at Germany's Jülich Research Centre demonstrated in mid-January 2026 that Europe's most powerful supercomputer can simulate 20 billion spiking neurons—matching the scale of the human cerebral cortex. The team plans to combine this capability with anatomical brain data to run full-cortex simulations, a technical milestone that has eluded researchers since the field's founding in the 1980s.

Updated May 22