Webinar

Metastases to the central nervous system from solid primary tumors are a frequent and fatal complication of cancer with limited therapeutic options. Despite the advent of immunotherapy, it remains largely unknown whether and how metastatic cells in the brain and surrounding cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-filled leptomeninges interact with the immune system. To approach these interactions in an unbiased manner, Jan Remsik and his colleagues profiled an unexpectedly heterogeneous population of cell types in human and mouse CSF with single-cell analytics. These samples were inherently challenging to process due to a relatively low number of cells from each human subject or mouse collection, extreme cell fragility, and contamination by myelin and other unwanted debris in the case of the mouse samples. Since FACS-sorted samples suffered an unbearable amount of stress that prevented their processing, the team used the LeviCell 1.0 system to deplete the debris and enrich for viable cells in stress-free conditions. Incorporating the LeviCell run into their pipeline resulted in the capture of sufficient numbers of high-quality cells for CITE-seq. Such a proteogenomic approach, combining more than 100 cell surface signals with whole transcriptome sequencing, allowed Remsik and his colleagues to elucidate the response of the CSF immune system to cancer at an unprecedented resolution. To sign up for the webinar, please register here.

In recent years, single-cell RNA sequencing has transformed our understanding of cellular heterogeneity within highly complex tissues and organs, revealing thus far undiscovered cell types and states and characterizing perturbations in disease. However, despite the advances in single-cell technologies, not all tissues and samples can be successfully profiled. This is often due to poor sample quality or low cell viability that can arise due to harsh tissue processing and cell isolation methods. Often, these are precious clinical samples. In this GEN webinar, our distinguished guests, Dr. Agne Antanaviciute and Stefan Zaharievski, will describe how a novel alternative to traditional cell sorting and labeling—LeviCell—can be used to improve significantly single-cell data quality and cell recoveries in complex clinical tissue samples. Additionally, they will detail how they have observed considerable increases in cell recoveries per reaction and overall improvements in data quality while preserving the cell type composition of the samples. Finally, our presenters will show how the LeviCell platform is compatible with CITE-Seq and cell hashing protocols for high throughput processing of multiplexed samples in one single cell reaction. A live Q&A session will follow the presentation, offering you a chance to pose questions to our expert panelists. Register Here

Cell and Gene therapy provides great promise to treat many diseases, such as B-cell malignancies, with FDA-approved CAR-T cells. Immune cells are first isolated from the patient or donor, followed by activation, expansion, and ex vivo genetic modification of selected immune cells. It is important to control and monitor the quantity and quality of immune cells throughout the development process as well as in the final product release phase as recommended by the Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Control (CMC) FDA guidelines. In this webinar, Dr. Kevin Travers, from LevitasBio. Inc. will present a novel technology and optimized workflows to enrich primary cells from various challenging samples without damaging fragile cells. Our 2nd speaker, Dr. Leo Chan, from Nexcelom Bioscience will describe optimized real-time apoptosis assays for 2D or 3D in vitro cell culture samples performed on the Cellaca® PLX and Celigo high-throughput cell counting and image cytometry systems. Key Topics: Development of the LeviCell™ platform and optimizing workflows to enrich cells from sensitive and challenging samples. Robust apoptosis assays based on Caspase enzymatic or Annexin-V binding analytical methods. Application of high-throughput image cytometry systems to count and analyze apoptosis in 2D and 3D cell culture samples for real-time and end-point assays. Register Here