The UAB Heersink School of Medicine Immunology Institute (II) and I-4ward (Inflammation, Infection, Immunity and Immunotherapy) strategic theme are requesting applications for a voucher program designed to support experiments using the new 10X Genomics Xenium high-plex in situ subcellular resolution platform which is now available here at UAB. Investigators interested in using cutting-edge spatial biology tools to characterize migratory and resident inflammatory cells and tissue-specific cell populations within tissue samples isolated from patients and pre-clinical models (mouse) of acute and chronic disease are invited to apply.
The 10X Genomics Xenium Analyzer will support true single cell spatial transcriptomics on fresh frozen or fixed tissue samples. You can characterize 100s to 1000s of RNAs in cells and tissues using customizable pre-designed or fully custom gene panels. The Xenium uses a high sensitivity, padlock probe rolling circle amplification (RCA) technology to quantify mRNAs in single cells within tissues. This technology supports high sensitivity detection of transcripts across a range of expression levels, including rare transcripts. The methodology can be used to detect short/highly degraded transcripts (as commonly seen after tissue fixation) and can distinguish between closely related transcripts (e.g. isoforms of genes). Tissue samples are arrayed on Xenium slides (2 slides/run with 12x24mm imageable area/slide). Validated gene probes are selected (custom and off the shelf containing gene specific barcodes, can use 50-5000 probe sets/run); hybridized to the slide, ligated and amplified using RCA. The slide is loaded into the Xenium analyzer where the amplified products are detected through successive rounds of fluorescent probe hybridization that take 2 days to complete. An optical signature specific for each gene is generated and then spatially mapped to the transcripts across the tissue section. The Xenium data can be visualized using freely available “explorer” tools that allow for run QC as well as simple exploration of the datasets.
Please submit proposals as a single PDF document containing a description of the proposed experiment(s), including timeline and milestones of future manuscript and/or grant submissions. Include NIH biosketches for all project Investigators and an itemized budget of up to $35,000. See below for description and pricing and contact information to answer questions about your experimental objectives. The voucher funds may be used within the UAB Flow Cytometry and Single Cell Core to purchase reagents, to cover Xenium service core fees or for consultation, data analytics and visualization with the UAB Biological Data Science Core Xenium analytic team.
We intend to fund up to 4 total research projects. Eligible applicants must hold a full-time UAB faculty appointment at any rank. Priority will be given to applications that have access to preliminary single cell datasets from the tissue of interest as this data is necessary for optimal probe design/selection and identification of cells and regions of interest within the imaged tissue. Demonstration of access to single cell data (published reference, data set or slide) and ability to complete data analysis will be scorable factors. Applications should share strong thematic overlap with either of the research missions of II (must be an II member) or I-4ward (focused on infectious or inflammatory diseases within the HSOM)†. Please specify which funding mechanism (II or I-4ward) on your application.
Applications for the 2025 voucher program are due by 5PM on Friday May 23rd. Awards will be made by end of July 2025 and funding will be available in August 2025. It is strongly recommended that interested applicants attend the 10X workshop to be held 12 -1 pm in BBRB 170 on April 16th. 10X representatives will be on hand to discuss Xenium Probe Design, Workflow and Analysis. If you need to more information, please email Madhubanti Basu at mbasu@uabmc.edu.
†Funding vouchers to support work on the 10X Genomics Xenium Analyzer are also available to members of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center through the OCCC voucher program, O’Neal Invests. Please consider this as a potential funding source if you are not a member of the Immunology Institute, or your research does not align with the research missions of the Immunology Institute or the HSOM I-4ward strategic theme.