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Single-cell genomics centre launched

Posted on behalf of Monya Baker.

Analysing cell-to-cell differences is crucial to answering important biological questions, such as how cancer spreads or how best to coax pluripotent stem cells to become specialized cells such as neurons. However, understanding how cells differ from each other means conducting experiments on individual cells, a very difficult feat.

Now, a new centre at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, suggests that single-cell genomics is moving from the proof-of-concept phase to reality.

In a statement, Wendy Winckler, director of the Genetic Analysis Platform at the Broad Institute, said that the just-launched centre “will enable researchers to access the exciting new world of single-cell genomics”.

Although single-cell genomics has produced a steady stream of publications so far, many are centred on technological innovations rather than underlying biology. This September, the US National Institutes of Health is expected to award some $90 million in grants for advancing single cell analysis.

The new centre will have dedicated staff and facilities from both the Broad Institute and Fluidigm and will use equipment from Fluidigm, says company chief executive Gajus Worthington. It is expected to become fully operational this quarter; Ken Livak, senior scientist at Fluidigm will move to Massachusetts to oversee projects at the centre.

“The centre will be the first of perhaps several such centres focused on driving the field of single-cell genomics forward,” says Worthington. “What it will do over time is elevate the relevance and impact of single-cell genomics in molecular biology.” The centre will also develop new microfluidic techniques for single-cell analysis of gene expression, RNA and DNA content, and epigenetic marks.

At least one other institution is devoted to single-cell genomics services. The Single Cell Genomics Center at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science offers services in cell sorting, cell lysis and whole-genome amplification. It announced last month that it would start offering single-cell sequencing as a service. It was founded in 2009. Initially the focus was on single-celled marine creatures, but that soon expanded to other microbes, as well as, increasingly, human cells, according to an interview with Director Ramanus Stepanauskas by GenomeWeb.

In January of this year, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) announced that it was devoting $40 million to fund one or two stem-cell genomics centres. In a commentary that same month, CIRM officials wrote that, “because stem cells exist in heterogeneous populations, the development of single-cell genomics technology will be key to understanding their regulation and characteristics”.

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