Keynote Presentation: Quantitative biology with droplet microfluidics

Many questions at the forefront of biology depend on the interactions of millions of single cells. My lab develops technologies for studying large numbers of single cells. In this talk, I will describe our approaches for sorting cells based on genomic and transcriptomic markers, and performing multi-omics analysis of single cells that allow simultaneous characterization of genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic signatures. I will also describe how we are adapting these techniques to integrate genomics with other single cell measurement approaches, including imaging, mass spectrometry, and atomic force microscopy. Finally, I will describe how we are using these techniques to build cells into controlled consortia for microbiological studies and bottom-up tissue synthesis.

Learning Objectives:

1. Familiarization with microfluidic methods for single-cell multi-omics analysis

2. Application of microfluidics to bottom-up cell community assembly