AGBT21: VizGen Unveils MERSCOPE

More spatial profiling news coming in from AGBT -- Harvard spin-out VizGen is launching in the U.S. an instrument implementing MERFISH technology.  This sub-$300K instrument will initially enable panels of up to 500 genes to be profiled, with plans to expand that capacity to 1000.  Users either pick from a menu of pre-designed panels or select genes using a Gene Panel Design Tool and VizGen would proceed to manufacturing the panel in around two weeks.  VizGen CEO Terry Lo and Senior Director of Marketing Brittany Auclair were kind enough to give me a preview last Friday.

AGBT21: The LabRoots Presentation Platform is an Unmitigated Disaster

Rant is ON! I've been having an utterly miserable experience with the LabRoots conference software that AGBT is using for their virtual meeting.  This year has exposed many of us to a wide variety of teleconference and virtual meeting software and many of the glitches are small and hard to pin down.  Or matters of personal preference (though if you don't share mine, you are simply wrong!).  But now on two major platforms I've come across major issues with LabRoots

AGBT21: Rebus Esper for Spatial Sees Things You Wouldn't Believe

My prediction that spatial would be a hot topic at AGBT was easy to make knowing I was sitting on embargoed news in the spatial space.  This morning Rebus Biosystems announced the launch of the Rebus Esper system for wide field spatial profiling of gene panels with subcellular resolution.  Rebus is promising that this instrument will offer true walkaway automation from fluidics through imaging, and data processing, requiring only one hour of hands-on time.

AGBT21: A Few Pre-Conference Mutterings

Getting some miscellanea out before AGBT21 starts later this morning