Device for rapid simple and highly parallel singlecell processing
Project Abstract:
Singlecell genomics is a set of methods that seek to obtain genomic information copy number variant profile genomic DNA transcriptome epigenetic state of singlecells using quantitative PCR or sequencing These methods are essential to extract genomic information from individual cells out of a complex mixture of cells particularly in neurology cell biology immunology and cancer research The impact of singlecell genomics has been recognized by the community and was named Method of the Year 2013 by Nature The applications of singlecell genomics are mostly concentrated on the analysis of very rare cells such as unculturable bacteria embryos and circulating tumor cells and on the analysis of heterogeneous tissues such as tumors Singlecell genomics already permitted to reveal unexpected mosaicism in the brain and to trace the clonal evolution of tumors Despite its tremendous potential singlecell genomics is hindered by a laborious workflow that has historically been manual and low throughput In addition the required number of cells to analyze can also be difficult to attain with existing methods One of the key drivers of the growth of the singlecell genomics market is the development of innovative platforms to streamline the sample preparation of singlecells at high throughput Our project proposes to develop a simple and effective method to perform molecular reactions at singlecell resolution In contrast to existing methods our approach 1 is simple to implement 2 is directly compatible with existing workflows for sample preparation thus 3 enables new analyses at singlecell resolution such as epigenetics and 4 permits the analysis of a very large number of singlecells at once In addition our method will enable the concurrent analysis of genomic and spatial information within a tissue thus providing not only the genetic makeup of individual cells but also information about their microenvironment One very exciting aspect of our approach is the vast array of applications that can be readily developed based on the core method which makes our platform highly versatile singlecell qPCR for diagnostics genomics genomic DNA transcriptome reporter arrays tissue genomic mapping and epigenomics Market analyses support the idea that the singlecell genomics market is currently sustained by academic funding but that it is about to transition towards a wider customer base with an overall market that should reach the 12 Billion range around 2020 Our solution will be highly competitive because it addresses current technical issues and represents the innovation that will disrupt the market Our method will enable the broad adoption of singlecell genomics by the biomedical and clinical communities and will capture a large share of the sample preparation for singlecell genomics market
