Brett
asked
Ben Stanger:
What do you think about spatial phenotyping (10X Genomics, Vizgen, Akoya Bio, Nanostring) and the ability to explore spatial multiomics? Understanding the cellular neighborhoods for the various biomedical research disciplines you discuss in the book? Will this lead to understanding TME and the cell's ability to align and snych into tissues?
Ben Stanger
Great question, and gets to the heart of the similarities and differences between embryos and cancers! These "spatial phenotyping" platforms allow investigators to define cellular "neighborhoods," as you note - meaning, how tendency for certain types of cells to associate with other like or unlike cell types. These kinds of associations are obvious in normal tissues, where cellular patterns are easily recognizable through the microscope, and in many cases we understand the basis for these spatial relationships (they are programmed during development and governed by cell-cell communication). The new spatial platforms enable a deeper look at the responsible molecules. But this is especially useful in cancer, where the cellular interactions are far more complex and appear (superficially) to be random. But there is little that is actually random in a tumor, and the spatial relationships between cells (cancer cells and non-cancer cells) hold a lot of information, much of which can inform future therapies.
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