Researchers aim to identify cellular circuit mechanisms and generate a dataset to fuel AI-driven foundational research of lung biology

Helmholtz Munich and Parse Biosciences today announced a strategic partnership to generate the world’s broadest lung disease perturbation atlas, powered by Parse Biosciences’ GigaLab platform. Using a human lung ex-vivo tissue slice culture model from normal control donor lungs as well as explant lung tissues from patients with chronic lung disease, the study aims to identify novel targets and cell circuits in lung health and disease by characterizing disease-specific responses of cells to 900 pharmacological interventions.

Prof Herbert Schiller, Director of Helmholtz Munich’s Precision Regenerative Medicine Research Unit, and a leading researcher on lung biology and disease, will head this ambitious initiative.

“Measuring the effects of drug treatments at single cell level directly in human lung tissue at scale, will help us to find strategies that improve lung tissue regeneration, which may lead to the targeted combination therapies of the future,“ states Schiller.

Prof Fabian Theis, who heads Helmholtz Munich’s Computational Health Center, adds, “To build foundational AI models of cell and tissue biology we are in urgent need for more high quality perturbation data – such a complex drug perturbation dataset will enable meaningful progress towards understanding gene regulation in lung health and disease.”

This initiative will be run through the Parse GigaLab, a state-of-the-art facility purpose-built for the generation of massive-scale single cell RNA sequencing datasets. Leveraging Parse’s Evercode chemistry, the GigaLab rapidly produces large single cell datasets with exceptional quality.

“With GigaLab, we’re enabling researchers to move past incremental discoveries,” states Charlie Roco, PhD, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Parse Biosciences. “Our collaboration with Helmholtz Munich demonstrates how vision and scale in single cell genomics can uncover biology, accelerating the path to better therapies.”

About Parse Biosciences

Parse Biosciences is a global life sciences company whose mission is to accelerate progress in human health and scientific research. Empowering researchers to perform single cell sequencing with unprecedented scale and ease, its pioneering approach has enabled groundbreaking discoveries in cancer treatment, tissue repair, stem cell therapy, kidney and liver disease, brain development, and the immune system.

With technology developed at the University of Washington by co-founders Alex Rosenberg and Charles Roco, Parse has raised over $100 million in capital and is used by approximately 3,000 customers across the world. Its growing portfolio of products includes Evercode™ Whole Transcriptome, Evercode™ TCR, Evercode™ BCR, Gene Select, and a solution for data analysis, Trailmaker™.

Parse Biosciences is based in Seattle’s vibrant South Lake Union district, where it recently expanded into a new headquarters and state-of-the-art laboratory. To learn more, please visit https://www.parsebiosciences.com/.

About Helmholtz Munich

Helmholtz Munich is a leading biomedical research center. Its mission is to develop breakthrough solutions for better health in a rapidly changing world. Interdisciplinary research teams focus on environmentally triggered diseases, especially the therapy and prevention of diabetes, obesity, allergies, and chronic lung diseases. With the power of artificial intelligence and bioengineering, researchers accelerate the translation to patients. Helmholtz Munich has around 2,500 employees and is headquartered in Munich/Neuherberg. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association, with more than 43,000 employees and 18 research centers the largest scientific organization in Germany. More about Helmholtz Munich (Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt GmbH): www.helmholtz-munich.de/en

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“Measuring the effects of drug treatments at single cell level directly in human lung tissue at scale, will help us to find strategies that improve lung tissue regeneration, which may lead to the targeted combination therapies of the future."