Getting integrated imaging and sequencing per cell off the ground with IRIS took a lot of grind. Countless iterations across every component. šø+š§¬=š
I want to highlight three key craftspeople who built, established, and coded what made IRIS work (preprint at thread end).
Link to preprint: š¦¾
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Today, we use their work every day.
Romina Augustin established well-coding the biochemical foundation that enabled our ādroplet consortiaā.
Katharina Eckstein removed five PCR cycles from the workflow, effectively tripling gene-detection sensitivity.
Nadia Grenningloh | While deterministic barcoding worked well enough for HEK293T cells, performance for PBMCs was initially abysmal - fixed with hard work (Supp. Fig. 2CāJ). The cost: more than 50 non-optimized IRIS runs, each involving >12-hour days.
Building IRIS meant turning a 'simple' idea into an integrated deterministic microfluidic instrument that combines imaging<>transcriptomes per cell. Those five years were full of ā0ā1ā moments; each essential for making IRIS reality.
Camille Lambert | Building the deterministic microfluidics required for precision stopping, cell encapsulation, and droplet sorting did not fall from the sky. It was an iterative process at CMi@EPFL. Iteration #42 finally did the job (Supp. Fig. 2A & 3A).