The Wellcome-funded Human Developmental Biology Initiative (HDBI) is a 5-year, £10 million research project involving 25 groups from across the UK and Europe.
The overall goal of the project is to support wider research in human development, which is needed to better understand how humans grow and develop, and how problems with these processes can sometimes arise and lead to miscarriages and congenital abnormalities.
Although much can be learned from studying the development of other animal species, there are substantial differences between humans and other organisms.
It is therefore vital to advance our knowledge beyond that inferred from other species and to study human development directly. To achieve this, the project will focus on four complementary systems: the early embryo, the developing heart and lung, the central nervous system and the blood and immune system.