Introduction
How?
DOTs look to nature to answer the question, “How do you find a specific cell of interest in a complex environment?”. To survive and reproduce, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or baker’s yeast, depends on highly evolved multicellular sensing modules to receive signals, process them, and then propagate a response to other cells in its network. Like neurons working together, the yeast are able to respond to complex inputs with complex outputs. The reproducibility of this system has been tested over billions of years of evolution and validated by the survival of the species.
Through careful engineering, we’ve functionalized these pathways to create a modular platform for the precise targeting of single cells by their unique combinations of surface antigens. With this technology, single cell analysis is no longer reliant on complicated instruments with laboratory specific workflows that prevent standardization. We can simply grow engineered cells with analytic abilities hardwired into their genetics, capitalizing on their evolved robustness for greater reproducibility.
