This scientist is helping build a missing map of childhood

When the Human Cell Atlas project started in 2017, its early focus on adults raised an immediate red flag for researcher Deanne Taylor. She saw a persistent lack of funding for child health studies and led a push to include children. Her work helped win major grants and start a new effort to chart healthy growth, addressing a key gap in science.

Key takeaways

• Deanne Taylor saw the problem when children were left out of the Human Cell Atlas and fought for their inclusion.
• Her advocacy supported a $38.5 million NIH grant for the Developmental Genotype-Tissue Expression (dGTEx) project.
• dGTEx will build the first full database of healthy child tissue, setting an essential reference point.
• Children’s biology is distinct; their unique gene activity can cause severe drug reactions, making this work vital.
• This child-focused data will join the Human Cell Atlas, offering a needed guide for grasping development and illness.

The Catalytic Moment and Initial Advocacy

Deanne Taylor heard a 2017 presentation at the University of Pennsylvania about the new Human Cell Atlas. She learned its first phase would only study adults, which sparked quick worry. “That’s when my little alarm went off,” she recalls. “Not again.” Having worked at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for three years, Taylor knew pediatric research consistently received less investment.

From Concern to Campaign

Taylor turned her concern into direct action. She joined the Human Cell Atlas volunteer group and wrote a part about children for its core white paper. She then united a hospital-wide team of child health scientists to support the project.

Spearheading a Case for Pediatric Research

Taylor drove a 2019 paper that made the argument for studying children, hoping to draw more attention and funds. This document marked a clear statement for the urgent need to understand typical child development. “It put a flag in the ground,” Taylor states. “Why don’t we have healthy models of children’s development?”

Securing Funding and Launching the dGTEx Project

Work by Deanne Taylor and her peers led to a major funding win in 2021. That year, the National Institutes of Health gave a $38.5 million grant to the Developmental Genotype-Tissue Expression Project (dGTEx).

Building a Pediatric Baseline

The dGTEx project works to create the first complete bank of healthy child tissue. It stores biological samples from deceased children who were otherwise healthy, depending on parental consent for these gifts.

Taylor and her CHOP team handle a central job in this system. They organize and standardize all the detailed data linked to each tissue donation, covering family history and sample specifics. Another lab analyzes the samples. Together, this builds a fundamental reference for normal gene activity in children.

Integrating Pediatric Data into the Human Cell Atlas

Information from the dGTEx project will finally flow into the Human Cell Atlas. Because of advocacy by Deanne Taylor and her coauthors on a key 2019 paper, the atlas now has a specific section for child development.

Colleagues call Taylor the “glue” connecting different research efforts. This function is especially important for the Human Cell Atlas, which depends on input from a broad network of scientists with separate goals. Sarah Teichmann, an atlas cofounder, says Taylor maintained a wide, integrated view. She pushed for understanding child growth across all organ systems together, not apart.

Teichmann praises Taylor for showing the collaborative drive needed to align these varied projects. Taylor’s efforts have united a hospital coalition of pediatric researchers to add to the larger atlas, looking beyond single organs like the kidney or brain.

The Scientific Rationale and Potential Impact

Children are not miniature adults; their cells manage genes differently. These differences can produce severe or fatal reactions to drugs that are safe for grown-ups.

The Human Cell Atlas builds on the Human Genome Project. The genome project listed our genetic parts, while the Atlas charts where and how genes operate in cells across the body, giving us a required instruction guide.

A Critical Window for Intervention

Knowing how genes work in children is essential for medicine. Gene activity changes can decide if a treatment helps or hurts. For instance, some chemotherapy drugs attack tumors but also damage developing hearts in children due to cardiac gene expression, possibly causing lifelong problems. Other medicines can set off harmful, full-body immune responses.

Creating a standard for healthy pediatric gene activity through projects like dGTEx is the initial move. It progresses our knowledge of normal growth, disease, and drug safety, closing a significant hole in biomedical science.