Grant: Cat Gr: Develop./validation of new biomedical techniques/technolo.- General Pool

Gleaning information about the protein content of an individual cell while retaining information about its location in a tissue will have significant implication for fundamental biology to more applied and clinical uses, for example quantifying resistance of a patient to a drug. Existing analysis is often either based on collecting the 'bulk' sample made up of many cells or looking at one or a few proteins rather than the thousands of different proteins that make up a cell. This misses the complexity of the cellular machinery or the spatial information as well the resolution at the single cell. In this project, we aim to develop a new platform and process - Cell2Spec - to establish spatial proteomic profiles at single cell resolution both using tissue sections and live cells. To develop Cell2Spec we bring the unique complementary expertise of two teams spanning miniaturization, bioassays and mass-spectrometry. The developed technology platform will enable a completely new class of experiments to be performed in a highly interactive, versatile and precise manner, and will be a unique facilitator for investigations into previously unapproachable problems in cell biology and life science.