Topic
Measuring molecular content with spatial context in tissue sections, including protein multiplexing and sequencing- or imaging-based assays.
VIMA, from Reshef and colleagues, fingerprints every small tissue patch with deep learning to find disease-linked structures across three diseases. Its features are learned from the data, so its tests can reach tissue structures outside any fixed list of cell types or niches.
Reality
City University of Hong Kong researchers led by Shi Peng mapped RNA in fresh mouse and human tissue with nanoneedles, skipping sequencing and amplification. The team is pitching it for routine pathology on time-sensitive biopsies, and that claim still needs cost and turnaround data.
Reality
Spatial Hi-C maps genome-wide 3D chromatin folding inside mouse brain sections, resolving 10-micrometre spots in adult cortex. Chromatin structure and anatomy can now be read from the same slice. So far, every result comes from mouse embryos and brains.
Reality
Spatial-ATAC-Hi-C pulls contact maps and accessibility signal from one barcoded spot of mouse and human brain tissue, which is how its authors come to report copy number and structural variants region by region across glioblastoma and astrocytoma.
Reality
The Nature Methods platform pairs stimulated Raman imaging with CODEX typing, so metabolism stops being predicted from transcripts. Its redox proxy still cannot name the cause.
Reality