HuBMAP is an important part of the international mission to build a high-resolution cellular and spatial map of the human body, and we are firmly committed to close collaboration and synergy with the aforementioned initiatives to build an easy-to-use platform and interoperable datasets that will accelerate the realization of a high-resolution human atlas. Shared guiding principles around open data, tools, and access will enable collaborative and integrated analyses of data produced by diverse consortia. To achieve this synergy, HuBMAP and other consortia will work together to tackle common computational challenges, such as cellular annotation, through formal and informal gatherings focused on addressing these problems, planned joint benchmarking and hands-on jamborees and workshops. Another example of the potential for close collaboration is in the study of the colon; multiple projects funded by HuBMAP, the Human Tumour Atlas Network, and the Wellcome Trust will be complemented by projects funded by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. With projects focusing on partly distinct regions and diseases (for example, normal tissue, colon cancer, and Crohn’s disease), it will be important for all of the programs to ensure that data are collected and made available in a consistent manner, and HuBMAP will play an active part in such efforts. As a concrete next step, HuBMAP, in collaboration with other NIH programs, plans to hold a joint meeting with the Human Cell Atlas initiative to identify and work on areas of harmonization and collaboration during the spring of 2020. In parallel, HubMAP participants engage in the meetings and activities of other consortia, such as the Human Cell Atlas or the Human Tumour Atlas Network, thus forming tight connections. We have started a series of open meetings to develop the CCF, with the first of these recently held in collaboration with the Kidney Precision Medicine Program and focused on the kidney.

HuBMAP will provide capabilities for data submission, access, and analysis following FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data principles47. We will develop policies for prompt and regular data releases in commonly used formats, consistent with similar initiatives. We anticipate that the first round of data will be released in the summer of 2020, with subsequent releases at timely intervals thereafter. Robust metadata will comprise all aspects of labelling and provenance, including de-identified donor information (both demographic and clinical), details of tissue processing and protocols, data levels, and processing pipelines.

Indeed, engagement and outreach to the broader scientific community and other mapping centres is central to ensure that resources generated by HuBMAP will be leveraged broadly for sustained impact. To ensure that browsers and visualization tools from HuBMAP are valuable, the consortium will work closely with anatomists, pathologists, and visualization and user experience experts, including those with expertise in virtual or augmented reality. As described above, we expect that the diversity of normal samples included in this project will facilitate valuable comparative analyses, pinpointing how cells and tissue structures vary across individuals, throughout the lifespan, and in the emergence of dysfunction and disease. The program will build its resources with these use cases in mind and provide future opportunities, such as the demonstration projects, for close collaboration with domain experts. We also anticipate that these data will be highly useful for the generation of new biomedical hypotheses, tissue engineering, the development of robust simulations of spatiotemporal interactions, machine learning of tissue features, and educational purposes.