4th European Single Cell Proteomics (ESCP) Conference

A couple of weeks ago, my colleague Jamil from Fossiliontech attended the Single Cell Proteomics meeting (ESCP, Vienna 2023) and I want to share his notes with you.

I hope this summary will be useful for you :)

Single Cell Analysis: Why?

This technique is essential for understanding cell variability and how it can be applied in diagnostics, personalized therapies, and medical advances.

What technical Challenges need to be addressed?:

- Columns: There is a tradeoff between throughput and separation capacity. Columns should be short to enable a high throughput (below 15 cm) and still perform an effective separation to have the shortest possible gradient time.

- Flow: A low flow rate (<30 nl/min) is required which can be a challenge, especially for stabilizing the spray.

   - Emitters: The emitters should have the narrowest possible diameter (<10 µm) and operate at low flow rates (actually the meniscus should be as small as possible! Why does size matter?

- Due to the low flow utilized, it is important to eliminate or minimize the dead volumes, especially between the column and the emitter.

   - It is also important to the robustness of the columns because they tend to break and clog more often due to the smaller diameters utilized.

- For an optimized ionization source, an automatic spray stabilization would be desirable.

We are also analyzing these challenges. We will share our progress with you in the future!