Although a tumor can start from a single gene mutation in a single cell, many different cell types help this tumor grow and move through the body, turning it into a life-threatening cancer. Researchers who use our facility study many different kinds of cancers in many organs and need to be able to separate the different cells that participate in cancer formation and progression in those tissues. In the previous grant, we purchased high-end equipment and recruited new staff members to start a new unit in our core to offer cancer researchers the ability to identify the many cells involved in the cancer they study by more than doubling the detection capabilities we offered at the time. This was...

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Although a tumor can start from a single gene mutation in a single cell, many different cell types help this tumor grow and move through the body, turning it into a life-threatening cancer. Researchers who use our facility study many different kinds of cancers in many organs and need to be able to separate the different cells that participate in cancer formation and progression in those tissues. In the previous grant, we purchased high-end equipment and recruited new staff members to start a new unit in our core to offer cancer researchers the ability to identify the many cells involved in the cancer they study by more than doubling the detection capabilities we offered at the time. This was very successful and now these researchers want to be able to build on their findings over the last few years to be able to take a very complicated tumor with different cell types and separate the different cell components to be able to further study them alone or in small groups. Doing this will help them better understand the role of each individual cell type in cancer formation and progression and also the interactions between the different cell types. They will also be able to test drugs on individual cell types or on combinations of cell types to understand why some cancers are more difficult to treat than others and thus develop better treatments.

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