In this discussion in GEN’s “The State of Multiomics and NGS” virtual summit, originally broadcast on April 23, 2025, Jonah Cool, PhD, Science Program Officer at CZI and Sarah Teichmann, PhD, Research Group Leader at Wellcome Sanger Institute, join GEN deputy editor in chief, Julianna LeMieux, PhD.
For a long time, researchers studied genetics in bulk, averaging across populations of cells. Single-cell RNA sequencing has, for over a decade, been unlocking the genetics of single cells and laying the foundations for projects like building cell atlases and uncovering how cells in different tissues or in different conditions interact and communicate.
Whether it’s in cancer research, neuroscience or immunology, the ability to analyze genetic information at the single cell level is revealing incredibly detailed and important insights. It allows us to explore how cells within the same tissue can behave differently or how certain disease can arise from subtle cellular differences.
One recent trend in the single cell world has been increasing the scale of projects. As these projects grow and more researchers increase the size of their single cell projects, it increases the understanding of biology at its most granular level. Teichmann and Cool discuss how single cell genomics is revolutionizing cell mapping and biology.
The entire virtual summit, including sponsored talks with Joseph M. Beechem, PhD, from Bruker, Melanie Janczyk from Scale Biosciences, Robert Meltzer, PhD, from Illumina, Clare Paterson, PhD, from Standard BioTools, and Kian Sadeghi from Sampled, is available to watch free on demand: bit.ly/OMICS25