The nonprofit Allen Institute for Brain Science has launched a new major project to accelerate brain and spinal cord research and help scientists worldwide gain new insight into numerous diseases and disorders.

The Seattle-based institute, funded by software billionaire Paul Allen, has set its sights on mapping the human brain. The research will complement two existing projects, atlases of a mouse brain and mouse spinal cord.

The newest project, called the Allen Brain Atlas-Human Brain, will map gene expression in the human brain and index it into a searchable online database, allowing users to search by gene, cortical region, donor or tissue characteristics.

All the atlases will be made publicly available on the Internet, at www.alleninstitute.org, at no charge to encourage widespread use and scientific collaboration. The $72.3 million project follows the completion in 2006 of a map of the mouse brain down to details of individual cells.

Plans call for completing the mouse spinal cord project in 2009, the developing mouse brain project in 2010, and the human brain project in 2012.