Celsee Inc. in Ann Arbor Thursday launched the Genesis system, the company’s first product. The system is designed to overcome the limitations of other tools for single-cell analysis and provide a way for scientists to analyze and interpret cellular behavior and collect cell-based information that was previously undetectable.
Analyzing individual cells instead of bulk populations or tissue-based assessment is important in the study of oncology, stem cell research, and immunology. For many medical conditions, the cell is the fundamental unit from which to determine disease onset, progression, and potential treatment matches.
Access to the genomic or proteomic content in a cell, as well as to cell cycle or state, can provide information that can drive a more complete understanding of disease progression and potential response to treatment. In order to obtain the most meaningful information, scientists need intact and viable cells that have not been damaged by harsh cellular analysis and manipulation processes.
“Commonly used single-cell analysis technologies lack the capture efficiency, cell viability, and reproducibility needed to achieve the scalability required for widespread use in research and clinical settings,” says John Stark, CEO of Celsee. “The Celsee Genesis system overcomes these deficiencies and provides clinical-grade, single-cell analysis at scale. We are excited about the opportunities to improve the experimental process in emerging fields such as proteogenomics and understanding response to immunotherapies.”
The company’s technology uses a gentle, gravity-based method to capture and isolate individual cells while maintaining viability and structural integrity. The Celsee Genesis workflow achieves capture efficiencies of more than 70 percent and improved sensitivity versus other commonly used techniques for single-cell analysis. The platform can be used directly with blood and tissue samples.
