My research at Mount Sinai under Dr. Cheen Ang in the Psychiatry department aims to create a setup that makes RNA imaging faster and more consistent. The setup involves multiple samples being arranged in a multi-well plate so that they can be imaged all at once.
RNA imaging technology allows scientists to visualize where RNA molecules are located within cells, providing insight into gene regulation and cell function. These tools are important to understanding disease and cellular behavior. One particular type of RNA imaging, such as MERFISH, can detect thousands of RNA molecules in single cells while preserving their spatial organization. However, this technique is limited by speed because samples are typically processed and imaged one cover slip at a time. This significantly slows imaging time. This study investigates whether a multi-well cover slip system can increase the efficiency of MERFISH Imaging without compromising imaging quality. A multi-well plate was mounted onto a single cover slip, and cells were seated in alternating wells to test for potential leakage between wells. The preliminary results suggest that spatial separation within the mini well design is sufficient to prevent RNA leakage during Imaging procedures. Overall, this study demonstrates that multi-well cover slip imaging is a feasible strategy for improving MERFISH scalability. The next steps are to test multi-well cover slips with more wells.
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ISR Speech 2 (1).mp4