Each year, more than 300,000 people are diagnosed with melanoma worldwide, and the number is estimated to rise. While mutations in genes like BRAF and NRAS, two of the most common genetic alterations in melanoma, can drive tumor growth, they don’t tell the whole story. Increasingly, research points to the importance of the tumor’s microenvironment—and how melanoma cells interact with their surroundings.
Over the past decade, researchers mapped genomes, identified new cell types, and made remarkable progress in profiling biology at the single-cell level. But the next layer of biological understanding won’t come from studying cells in isolation, it will come from studying what happens between them. To move forward, we need to focus not only on who the cells are, but how they behave in their native context and in communication with each other.
Moleculent launched its Techstart program, offering researchers early access to its platform for profiling cell-cell interactions in FFPE tissue samples.
