  Cell types are at the root of modern biology, and describing them is a core
task of the Human Cell Atlas project. Surprisingly, there are no standards for
reporting new cell types, leading to a gap between classes mentioned in
biomedical literature and the Cell Ontology, the primary registry of cell
types. Here we introduce the Minimal Information Reporting About a CelL
(MIRACL) standard, a guideline for describing cell types alongside scientific
articles. In a MIRACL sheet, authors organize a label, a diagnostic
description, a taxon, an anatomical structure, and a parent cell class for each
cell type of interest. The MIRACL standard bridges the gap between wet-lab
researchers and ontologists, facilitating the integration of biomedical
knowledge into ontologies and artificial intelligence systems.
