 Village cultures are an effective method for studying the context, dependent effects of induced chloropotent stem, IPS, cells on human phenotypes. By combining IPS cells from multiple individuals into one culture, researchers can scale up their experiments to the necessary sample size for population level studies. Additionally, village cultures allow researchers to assign individual cells to specific IPS lines based on their genomic profiles, thus allowing them to identify the genetic, epigenetic, or IPS line-specific effects that drive gene expression differences between cells. Finally, village cultures can also detect dynamic changes in cell state, providing insight into the underlying mechanisms of IPS cell function. This article was authored by Drew Neving, Angela M. Steinman, Nona Fabehi, and others.