10x Genomics, Inc, a leader in single cell and spatial biology, announced a collaboration with the NIH Intramural Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias (NIH CARD) to build a more comprehensive single cell atlas of the human brain to further neuroscience research. Known for complementing a broad range of NIH-funded research that requires harnessing emerging technologies at scale, NIH CARD will use Chromium Single Cell Multiome to profile the epigenome and whole transcriptome across millions of individual cells from ancestrally diverse brain samples.
“Our goal is to provide researchers with a highly detailed genetic map of the damage caused in neurodegenerative disorders,” said Andrew B. Singleton, Ph.D., NIH CARD director. “The hope is that these maps will help scientists increase their understanding and ultimately develop new and better treatments for these devastating disorders.”
Researchers will analyze more than 1,000 samples across multiple control and diseased human brain regions — such as the brainstem, hippocampus, striatum and cerebellum — to learn more about the cellular changes and underlying regulatory elements associated with neurodegenerative diseases. NIH CARD scientists aim to produce high-quality, standardized and harmonized datasets that can be integrated with other modalities, like long-read DNA sequencing. To date, the team has already processed 400 samples with Chromium Single Cell Multiome and recently acquired Visium CytAssist and Xenium In Situ instruments to explore the use of spatial tools for the multi-region atlas.
“So much of neurodegeneration is a black box, but once you start opening up that black box, you have many new avenues for progress. That’s what single cell analysis does; it brings to light the ground truth of the underlying biology at massive scale and high resolution,” said Ben Hindson, Co-founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer at 10x Genomics. “It’s energizing to see our technologies help the research community build an expansive reference set for neuroscience, which could ultimately lead towards developing better ways to prevent, diagnose, treat and one day cure these devastating diseases.”
The human brain atlas is intended to serve as a neurodegenerative disease reference set that better captures ancestral diversity to enable the translation of genetic risk to biological consequence. The collaboration is expected to produce high quality, standardized data that will be openly available to the global scientific community.
NIH CARD is a collaborative initiative of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. This project is funded by the NIA Intramural Research Program (ZIAAG000545). The content of this news release is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
SOURCE: PRNewswire