Allen Institute

More than two decades ago, Jeff Carroll learned he carries the gene for Huntington's disease, the same disease that took his mother. Instead of stepping back, he stepped toward it, asking the doctor who delivered the news for a job.

Today, Jeff is part of our new Brain Health Accelerator: a global effort to accelerate brain disease research and expedite genetic therapies for diseases like Huntington's, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ALS, and Lewy Body Disease.

Huntington's, with its single, well-defined genetic cause, may light the path for tackling far more complex brain diseases. And for Jeff, the science is personal.

We're proud to have him on the team. Read his story, beautifully told by Carolyn Johnson in The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2026/06/02/this-scientist-learned-he-has-devastating-brain-disease-he-set-out-cure-it

One in three people worldwide are affected by neurological conditions. It’s time to take a different approach to brain disease research.

Together with partners like the Bezos family, Amazon Web Services, EverythingALS, and a global network of collaborators, we are launching the Brain Health accelerator, a global research collaboration designed to accelerate our understanding of the human brain and fast-track new precision cell- and circuit-based genetic therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and other disorders.

introducing/ – a new science accelerator. This global network of partners and collaborators is working to speed human brain research and fast-track new therapies for neurological conditions.

Tune in to the live stream at 11:15am (Pacific):

introducing/ brain health accelerator One in three people worldwide are affected by neurological conditi...

Every thought, movement, and memory emerges from patterns of electrical activity surging through billions of neurons. To decode this complex language, researchers must pinpoint and manipulate the behavior of thousands of individual neurons to see the role they play in the brain. Getting this data is delicate and difficult.

A global team of engineers and scientists overcame this challenge by combines optical stimulation with a highly sensitive recording probe into one tool: Neuropixels Opto. Shared today in Nature Methods, this breakthrough tool allows research to measure, record, and manipulate brain cells.

With recent advances in computing power, enhanced microscopy, better neuron-tracing tools, and artificial intelligence, scientists now believe it’s a matter of when, not if, they can emulate a human brain in a computer.

Pediatric IBD is more aggressive, harder to treat, and growing in prevalence.

Together with Seattle Children's, we're applying deep immune profiling to decode what is happening and identify treatments.

What is a human brain cell but not a neuron? It sounds like a riddle, but our brains are full of other, lesser-known cells besides the textbook-famous electrical-signal-conducting neurons.

Some of these cells, known collectively as glial cells, seem to be just as complicated as neurons but because they don’t send signals in the same way, are even harder to study in the lab.

Shown above in a microscopy image, a delicate type of brain cell known as an astrocyte, named for their star-like shape. Allen Institute scientists study how the types of brain cells, including astrocyte types, varies across mammals. This particular human astrocyte appears to be a rare type known as a varicose projection astrocyte, so-called because it makes contact with blood vessels in the brain. This kind of astrocyte has only been found in the brains of humans and other apes.