Lunaphore, Cartana and Stockholm University collaborate in automated in situ sequencing

CARTANA AB, Lunaphore Technologies S.A, and Prof. Dr. Mats Nilsson’s laboratory at Science for Life laboratory, Stockholm University, announce a collaboration on the integration and automation of CARTANA’s Next Generation In Situ Sequencing (NGISS) on Lunaphore’s microfluidic tissue processor technology. The team aims to deliver a complete hard-, soft- and "wetware"-automated solution that will greatly simplify in situ sequencing workflows in laboratories. A novel hardware design allows the integration with standard fluorescent microscopes, controlled by a plug-in software module, and facilitates automation of sequencing and imaging cycles. The team was granted a Eurostars-2 grant to support the effort.

“We are delighted to run this project together with Lunaphore and Stockholm University“ says Malte Kühnemund, CEO of Cartana. “In this project we will introduce a new generation of ISS chemistry with improved performance, and together with Lunaphore we expect to overcome the bottleneck of automating sequencing and imaging cycles, which will make it easy for our customers to establish ISS on microscopes they already have in their laboratories”.

Diego Dupouy, CTO at Lunaphore, mentions: “We have shown during our first Eurostars project that ISS can be automated using Lunaphore’s platform. We are thrilled to start our second collaboration with Prof. Nilsson’s laboratory and CARTANA” and adds: “We believe that the combination of NGISS chemistry together with Lunaphore’s fast fluidic exchange technology can transform the field of spatial transcriptomics, by reaching unprecedented throughput and automation levels.

CARTANA AB, a Swedish biotech company develops and commercializes ISS technologies for application in CNS and other various tissue types. Dr Mats Nilsson’s laboratory at Science for life laboratory, Stockholm University, has a long track record of scientific achievements within molecular analysis tools and their translation into commercial products. Lunaphore Technologies, a Swiss medtech company, is developing innovative equipment for cancer research and tissue diagnostics based on a novel microfluidic tissue processor lying at the core of Lunaphore’s innovation, which is able to dramatically increase the speed of tests, with high quality and reproducibility. The knowledge and expertise of these organizations will now be combined and once functional, a joint business effort will ensure that ISS throughput and reproducibility in standard laboratories will be greatly improved.