Science breakthrough of the year 2018: Development cell by cell

Science journal has announced single cell RNA-seq analyses as the 2018 Breakthrough of the Year! The development cell by cell is basically a pseudo-time analysis of embryonic cells. From sciencemag.org:

“Using a variety of sophisticated computational methods, [researchers] linked single-cell RNA-seq readouts taken at different time points to reveal the turning on and off of sets of genes that defined the types of cells formed in those more complex organisms. One study uncovered how a fertilized zebrafish egg gives rise to 25 cell types; another monitored frog development through early stages of organ formation and determined that some cells begin to specialize earlier than previously thought. ‘The techniques have answered fundamental questions regarding embryology,’ says Harvard University stem cell biologist Leonard Zon.”

We at FASTGenomics are very happy to work in such a fast-developing and promising area of research and we aim to make these methods and analyses available to a broad range of researchers.