Publication alert: our current thoughts on spatial transcriptomics
Published on October 31, 2024 by N. Rajewsky Lab
publication review article spatial transcriptomics molecular pathology cell–cell communication disease mechanism personalized medicine artificial intelligence
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Challenges & Opportunities in Clinical Translation of High-Resolution Spatial Transcriptomics (ST)
🧬 Spatial transcriptomics technologies revolutionized our ability to profile gene expression in intact tissue sections at subcellular resolution!
🔬 Since Virchow, pathology has always been fueled by technological advances and these ‘molecular microscopes’ hold great potential to identify disease mechanisms and guide therapuetic choices.
🏥 Curious to know how they work and how they can be translated into the clinic? Our thoughts are now out on Annual Reviews of Pathology.
🚀 Digitalizing gene expression & tissue morphology is already generating the training data for the next generation large-scale models, bridging histology and molecular biology for pathology 2.0. We are excited to see what the future holds!
High-resolution ST technologies work as molecular microscopes, digitalizing gene expression and tissue morphology at subcellular resolution. This enables the interactive exploration of millions of transcripts and their comparison with routine histology and pathologist annotations.
With high-resolution ST we can study tissue organization in 2D and 3D virtual tissue blocks, analyzing the organization of cells in multicellular niches and identifying which receptor–ligand interactions orchestrate their function in situ.
In the clinic, spatial biomarkers and patient-specific molecular mechanisms identified by ST hold great potential to inform patient care and help the discovery of novel drug targets, as showcased in early preclinical studies.
Several challenges exist to their swift clincal translation: What is the ‘best’ ST method? How do we turn complex molecular data into meaningful insights for patient care? How do we integrate in clinical routines?
As large-scale clinical studies are urgently needed to link spatial biomarkers with patient outcomes, we discuss key considerations for the design of clinical ST projects from sample preservation and method choice to panel design and power analysis.
That’s a wrap! The potential of ST to revolutionize clinical practice is huge, but we still have work to do to unlock its full impact. Stay tuned as the field evolves! 🚀