The study of a single cell, the fundamental unit of our complex bodies, has become an important field in cellular biology, and researchers are using single-cell analysis to shed new light on basic biological questions and understand disease mechanisms. There is thus an urgent requirement for technologies enabling high-throughput assay and isolation of single cells for further characterization.

Using microfluidics, single cells can be encapsulated in picodroplets with a volume that is 100,000s times lower than a typical bulk volume method, Picodroplet-based methods to analyse single cells provide important benefits in research, including rapid generation for use as miniaturized independent “test tubes” for high-throughput bioassays, encapsulation of single cells (and their corresponding secreted molecules) to extend applicable assay types, and a low-shear stress environment to protect cells. This facilitates large-scale experiments at the single cell level; not only to enable the rapid detection and high-throughput sample processing, but also time- and cost-effective screening compared to conventional methods.

Using this technology, a range of novel bioassays can be developed for several applications, including biotherapeutic discovery and development and cell therapy research. In this webinar, we will describe these droplet-based approaches and how they can be harnessed to advance single-cell analysis, enabling the discovery and development of novel therapeutics.

Learning objectives:

1. Clarify the main advantages of studying single cell as opposed to cell bulk analysis.

2. Explain picodroplets microfluidics.

3. Describe how they can be applied to therapeutic research: CAR-T therapy’s case study will be shared to help illustrate the benefit of functional assays in picodroplets for single-cell analysis.