SciLifeLab Spatial Omics

We propose a national SciLifeLab Spatial Omics infrastructure to serve a wide range of Life Science research areas with spatially resolved multimodal targeted- and omic-wide molecular profiling.

The infrastructure consists of 4 units from the SciLifeLab Single-Cell and Spatial Biology platform: 1) In situ sequencing unit (SU), 2) the Spatial Transcriptomic unit (KTH), 3) the Spatial Proteomic unit (KTH), and 4) the Mass-Spectrometry Imaging unit (UU).

The infrastructure units are supported by 4 pioneers in the field, Mats Nilsson (SU), Joakim Lundeberg (KTH), Emma Lundberg (KTH), and Per Andrén (UU).

The aim of the infrastructure is to serve Swedish scientists in fields including cancer research, neuroscience, infectious disease, autoimmunity, developmental biology, plant bioscience, and the Human Cell Atlas community spatially resolved multimodal molecular profiling datasets to reach an unprecedented depth of characterization of the molecular and cellular composition of tissue samples from any organ of interest, and from a wide range of disease states.

We request funding for a package of instruments to scale up data generation and computational capacity to be able to serve the country.

We request funding for a high performance GPU-server, an automated in situ sequencer, tissue processing equipment for Spatial Transcriptomics, an automated multiplex antibody staining system, and a high-resolution MALDI-MSI mass spectrometer. We also request funding for staff scientists to set up and develop applications on the instruments.

We expect that this investment will take Sweden to the absolute fore-front in the emerging field of spatial omics driven tissue biology, and will benefit national data-driven research programs such as the WASP and DDLS.

We also expect that during the life-time of these instruments, we will see the initial steps towards translation of these methods into the health-care, forestry and drug development sectors.