A revolution in cellular measurement technology is underway. Whereas prior studies have been able to analyze only the averaged outputs from renal tissue, we now can accurately monitor genome-wide gene expression, regulation, function, cellular history, and cellular interactions in thousands of individual cells in a single experiment. These methods are key drivers in changing our previous morphotype-based organ and disease descriptions to unbiased genomic definitions and therefore improving our understanding of kidney development, homeostasis, and disease.