Cambridge-US alliance boosts single cell research

The duo have struck a strategic partnership to provide automated workflows and are exhibiting their solution this week at the American Society of Human Genetics conference in Boston, MA, where customer data and new solutions developed are being highlighted.

SPT Labtech pioneers the design and development of laboratory automation and liquid handling solutions while 10x Genomics, Inc. is a leader in single cell and spatial biology.

Their collaboration will allow scientists to scale experiments on 10x’s Chromium Single Cell platform, with planned future expansion to the Visium Spatial solution by providing plug-and-play protocols on SPT Labtech’s firefly® liquid handling version.

firefly® users will gain access to optimised, ready-to-run methods developed with combined expertise from both companies’ application teams. These protocols are designed to streamline single cell assay workflows, and improve reproducibility, efficiency and scalability.

The partnership builds on 10x’s acquisition of Scale Biosciences, a company already partnered with SPT Labtech. Many firefly® users rely on Scale's chemistries so this expanded collaboration with 10x will give researchers access to the company’s full range of single cell and spatial solutions.

Morten Frost, Chief Commercial Officer at SPT Labtech, said: "Single cell experiments are a critical area of focus for our firefly community. Working closely with 10x Genomics has been key to understanding the specific challenges and needs of researchers in this space.

"By making these optimised methods available in the firefly cloud, we are empowering scientists with easier access to cutting-edge tools for single cell discovery, while reducing barriers to adoption of advanced workflows."

Brooke Murphy, Vice President, Strategic Marketing at 10x Genomics, added: "10x Genomics is committed to enabling researchers everywhere to uncover new insights into biology through our single cell solutions.

"This partnership with SPT Labtech will allow more labs to seamlessly automate their workflows, combining the flexibility of firefly automation with the robustness of our GEM-X chemistry, ultimately accelerating breakthroughs in human health.”