Until recently, most genomic technologies such as DNA and RNA sequencing require scientists to grind up tumor tissues in a blender and extract these molecules as a pool for analysis. This processes inherently loses all information on the complex composition of the different immune cells, connective cells and vascular cell types in the tumor tissues and their spatial organization relative to the cancer cells. Spatial Genomics is an exciting new field with technologies that allow cancer researchers to directly connect the images of cells and their tissue structures with genomic data in a spatial context for the first time. While powerful, these technologies require expensive equipment that ...

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Until recently, most genomic technologies such as DNA and RNA sequencing require scientists to grind up tumor tissues in a blender and extract these molecules as a pool for analysis. This processes inherently loses all information on the complex composition of the different immune cells, connective cells and vascular cell types in the tumor tissues and their spatial organization relative to the cancer cells. Spatial Genomics is an exciting new field with technologies that allow cancer researchers to directly connect the images of cells and their tissue structures with genomic data in a spatial context for the first time. While powerful, these technologies require expensive equipment that are difficult to manage and interdisciplinary expertise to perform the experiments and analyze the resulting big datasets. To bring these new technologies to cancer researchers at MD Anderson, the Texas Medical Center (TMC) and the greater state of Texas, we propose to establish a comprehensive CPRIT Advanced Spatial Genomics (ASG) Core Facility. Additionally, the ASG core will provide educational and training activities to cancer researchers to train scientists in these techniques and the computational methods required to analyze the resulting datasets. The potential impact of the ASG core is vast and will likely improve both our basic knowledge of cancer and the clinical diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients. In research, these technologies hold great potential to improve our understanding of cancer premalignancies, metastatic disease and therapeutic resistance. In the clinic, these methods can improve therapeutic strategies in immune-oncology, diagnostics assays and lead to the identification of new drug targets. Overall, we expect that the ASG core will have a profound impact on cancer research and improving the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients across diverse solid cancer types.

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