International Lung Cell Nomenclature Summit

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is hosting a virtual workshop titled "International Lung Cell Nomenclature Summit" on November 18 and 19, 2024. Single-cell transcriptomics has been widely applied by the research community to study complex organs including the lung. While data have been generated with unprecedented scale and resolution, data standardization and harmonization are critically important to ensure accurate data interpretation. Cell type identification from single cell analysis requires complex parameter optimization, manual inspection, computational tools, and other domain expertise. Because of the variability of these among different consortia and research groups, consensus on the criteria of cell type identification and cell nomenclature is not established at the community level.

In this workshop, researchers conducting multi-omics studies on lung cells from heathy and diseased lungs will review current datasets from LungMAP, HuBMAP, HLCA, and other public data repositories, and discuss criteria and processes for cell type identification. Interactive working groups will review and discuss, in detail, the progress of current nomenclature in each of the major lung cell types. Final summative discussions will identify existing challenges, gaps, future priorities, and plans to disseminate results to the broad research community. An executive summary and workshop report will be developed after the meeting to summarize key findings.