Abstract

Towards Single Cell Analysis of Proteins from Clinical Samples Relevant to Human Health

David Klug, Co-Founder/Professor, Imperial College London

Over the past few years we have been developing microfluidic devices to support the quantification of protein copy number from single cells. There are multiple motivations for the development of such technologies. Cell to cell variation and the correlation between such variations can reveal the connectivity of a signalling/regulatory pathway or network within the cell. Alternatively there are many cases where only small numbers of cells are available for study and sensitivity is therefore at a premium. There is also the case of the analysis of clinical material from patients. In these cases minimally invasive biopsies are highly desirable, as is the ability to maximise the useful information that can be obtained. In this talk I discuss progress with the technology so far and give examples of the latest methods in use in my lab for single cell protein analysis together with the cell handling techniques which are a practical requirement of undertaking such studies. I also show preliminary data from clinical samples to illustrate how single cell analysis techniques can be put to use in the field of biomedical research and healthcare.