At the recent Parse User Group Meeting in London, Steve Charnock-Jones, Professor of Reproductive Biology at the University of Cambridge, presented on how single cell RNA sequencing can be used to understand placental biology, with the ultimate goal of improving pregnancy outcomes, particularly reducing stillbirth and related complications such as preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction.
He walked through:
- The biological complexity of the placenta
- Best practices for applying single cell approaches to placental tissue
- A case study using trophoblast stem cells to identify and validate a key regulatory gene (CXADR)
- The importance of experimental design, sampling, and validation in single cell studies
