The Hertz Foundation Entrepreneurship Award is backing an open-access human cell surface map intended to support drug discovery and delivery decisions. The open atlas concept targets a bottleneck in therapeutics: selecting the right biological target and ensuring drugs can reach and recognize the intended cell types in the body. By mapping cell-surface biology in an accessible format, the project aims to reduce repeated target-identification work across teams and potentially improve hit-to-lead efficiency. The open-access model is designed to make the dataset usable for multiple programs, rather than locked behind proprietary platforms. For delivery-focused biologists and translational teams, the initiative highlights how platform datasets are increasingly being positioned as infrastructure for target and antibody engineering.
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