A new research core—the Spatial Transcriptomics Core—has opened at Penn Dental Medicine, bringing a revolutionary advance in genetics research to the heart of the school and in turn, adding to the research resources for the entire Penn campus. The Spatial Transcriptomics Core features the 10X Genomics Xenium Analyzer, a device that enables researchers to measure which genes are active on a per-cell basis throughout a section of tissue. Using an imaging-based approach to map the location of each cell and up to 5,000 different RNA transcripts contained within, the Xenium Analyzer represents new cutting-edge technology that is now readily accessible to Penn Dental Medicine researchers.

“The nice thing about this kind of science is it’s widely applicable to different types of tissues and cell types,” said Eric Larson, director of the core. “Doing transcriptome measurements is always going to be helpful to understand what is going on in a tissue.”

The new core is located in room 429 of the Leon Levy Center at Penn Dental Medicine and works in partnership with staff in the school’s Tissue Processing Core, who help to prepare and read samples with the dedicated assistance of technical director Juyoung Park. The core is open to the Penn community. Users will have access to pre-experiment consultation, specimen sourcing and sectioning assistance, Xenium workflow assistance from a dedicated core staff member, and multiple options for downstream data analysis. The final output gives researchers a picture of which genes are detected in which cells.

“People are going to start realizing how much of an impact this type of data is going to make on the field, now that we’re able to start combining this spatial element with all of the other single-cell transcriptomic studies that have been done,” said Dr. Larson. Researchers in Penn Dental Medicine and throughout Penn can schedule time at the core by visiting www.dental.upenn.edu/SpatialTranscriptomicsCore or by contacting Dr. Larson, core director, at larsoned@upenn.edu.