Dr. Ed Hawrot, program coordinator for Advance RI-CTR, recently succeeded in using infrastructure grant funding to purchase a CosMx spatial molecular imager (SMI) capable of single-cell imaging while preserving the spatial orientation of the sample. This enables researchers to observe biological interactions at the cellular and subcellular level in complex tissues.

“Spatial transcriptomics was the Nature method of the year in 2021, and since then, NSTG's CosMx SMI has advanced to whole transcriptomic analyses at subcellular resolution,” explains Dr. Hawrot. “Indeed, a quick search of titles in PubMed shows the term ‘Spatial Transcriptomics’ has more than quadrupled from 2021 to 2023.”

While the state-of-the-art instrumentation is on-order, please help us to spread the word of its impending arrival far and wide, so that it may benefit all Rhode Island investigators who are conducting single cell visualizaton of RNA and protein expression to study cancer, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, fetal development and immunology.

The CosMx SMI holds the potential for long-term benefits from the research it enables, such as advancements in clinical practice, where it can be used to analyze patient biopsies, and the development of new therapies leading to better healthcare outcomes. We are fortunate to be able to provide this resource to researchers in Rhode Island.

Please contact Christoph Schorl, PhD to discuss how this exciting technology can advance your research.