Construction of 3D single-cell maps of human organs

Detailed characterization of the cell types comprising the highly complex human organs is essential to understanding their functions. Such tasks require highly scalable experimental approaches to examine different aspects of the molecular state of individual cells, registering cells to 3D coordinates, as well as the computational integration to produce unified cell state annotations. To this end, we have established experimental platforms and computational pipelines for constructing 3D single-cell maps for human adult organs. In this talk I will present our recent results on the creation of a integrative single-cell transcriptome and chromatin accessibility maps of selected human brain regions, and discuss our on-going efforts for building whole-organ maps for human brain, lung and kidney.

Biography:

Dr. Kun Zhang is a Professor and Department Chair of Bioengineering at the University of California at San Diego. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Texas at Houston/MD Anderson Cancer Center, he received his post-doctoral training with George Church at Harvard Medical School. He joined the faculty of UCSD Department of Bioengineering in 2007. His group develops technologies related to single-cell analyses of genome, epigenome and transcriptome,  as well as single-cell imaging and lineage tracing. These novel technologies are applied to stem cell fate conversion, human brain mapping and human disease studies. He is currently leading multiple NIH center projects on creating the 3D single-cell maps for multiple human organs, including brain, lung, kidney and bladder. He also co-founded Singlera Genomics Inc. focusing on non-invasive early cancer screening and detection.

Seminar Flyer_ Kun Zhang