RNA sequence key to better treatments and diagnostics

Mats Nilsson, Professor of Biochemistry at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Stockholm University, Site Director of SciLifeLab and participant in Crosstalks on biotechnology and biomedicine, Science for life – mapping the building blocks of the human body, talks about his research at SciLifeLab.

“I am developing molecular analysis techniques for research and diagnostics. For example, we have recently developed a sequencing technique that allows us to sequence RNA directly in tissue sections. This makes it possible to make molecular profiling, expression profiling and mutation profiling in tissue in all cells with single cell resolution, within a tissue section.

We believe this is useful to understand normal and pathological function of tissues with a particular interest on cancer tissues, where we think that better understanding the clonal heterogeneity in tumors and their interaction among the different sub clones and the tumor micro environment will help guide development of better treatments and better diagnostics.”