November 15, 2017 (Vol. 37, No. 20)
URL:
www.hipsci.org
Rating:
Strong Points: Beautiful site design, large amount of downloadable data
Weak Points: Only raw data provided, no snapshot visualizatons
Summary:
With an acronym like “HipSci,” the Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Initiative certainly sounds cool. In fact, with its sleek design and an abundance of data, this website is able to live up its “hip” name. The goal of the Initiative is to generate and characterize a large number of human iPSC lines as a resource for the global research community. Thus far, a large number of lines have been derived from skin tissue or whole blood (from both healthy and diseased subjects), and each line has been characterized via at least a subset of eight different assays, including exome-seq, RNA-seq, cellular phenotyping, proteomics analyses, and others. Detailed information about all of the lines and downloadable files for the corresponding characterization data can be viewed on the HipSci website. In addition, all of the cell lines are available for purchase directly from the site.