Sarah Teichmann is co-founder and principal leader of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) international consortium. The International Human Cell Atlas initiative aims to create comprehensive reference maps of all human cells to further understand health and disease.

The team’s research focuses on four complementary study areas:

• Transcriptional regulation and gene expression
• Single-cell genomics
• Immunology
• Protein complexes

Transcriptional regulation and gene expression

We study the processes that control cell-specific gene expression in both embryonic stem cells and in T lymphocytes.

This research enables us to ask questions about the mechanisms that maintain stem-cell pluripotency and the ways that cells make fate decisions within the immune system.

Single-cell genomics

It is clear that differences between cells within seemingly homogenous populations can be crucial in many biological processes.

We work with cutting-edge techniques that enable us to study cell populations at single-cell resolution.

We apply these techniques to better understand our areas of interest and we also develop novel computational approaches to analyse single-cell data.

Immunology

We are fascinated by the mechanisms that control the development, differentiation and fate choices of CD4+ T lymphocytes.

We study these cells at the single-cell level to understand their behaviour during immune responses and also the role of the cells’ specific T cell receptors.

Protein complexes

We investigate the principles that govern the folding and assembly of protein complexes. Most recently, by analysing the tens of thousands of protein complexes for which three-dimensional structures have already been experimentally determined, we found repeating patterns in the assembly transitions that occur, which could be organized into a periodic table.

20th Anniversary Celebration