8 MAY 2025TECH OUTLOOKIN MY OPINIONCancer research has benefited tremendously from the recent technological advancement of single-cell spatial assessment. In the past decade, scientists have developed multiple single-cell technologies such as single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq), single-cell ATAC-seq (scATAC-seq), single-cell DNA methylome, and single-cell proteomics (SCP). These technologies have allowed us to make remarkable advances in revealing the mechanisms of human diseases. Excitingly, spatial omics technologies with increasingly higher resolution have been developed to combine single-cell techniques with next-generation sequencing or multiplexed imaging, which enables us to examine spatial distribution of RNA and proteins within tissues. Here, we discuss the cutting-edge spatial omics technologies and their applications in oncology drug development.Spatial techniques have been combined with a wide range of single-cell omics technologies such as transcriptomics, proteomics and genomics. The two most widely used spatial transcriptomics platforms include 10X Genomics' Visium and NanoString's GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler (DSP). Both Visum and GeoMx DSP employ sequencing-based technologies to profile whole transcriptome RNA expression, although they use different techniques to retain spatial information. Currently, spatial proteomics such as MIBI-TOF and CODEX multiplexed imaging platforms can be employed to examine dozens of proteins via antibody-based methods. Other spatial omics technologies such as spatial assays for chromatin accessibility and spatial genomics based on DNA seqFISH are also actively explored in research settings, although they are not commercially available yet. Overall, these spatial omics technologies will enable us to study complex biological systems and accelerate the development of new therapies for oncology.Application of spatial omics technologies in studying the pathogenesis of cancers Examination of the spatial localization of any given cell, relative to its neighboring cells or structures, can profoundly impact our capacity to understand the pathogenesis of cancers, especially interrogating the spatial immune microenvironment in human cancers. In glioblastomas, exhausted T cells were recently demonstrated to be preferentially spatially located within mesenchymal-like tumor regions. A subset of HMOX1+ myeloid cells, located at the tumor microenvironment interface, release interleukin-10 and then drive the induction of T-cell exhaustion, thereby resulting in the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment in glioblastomas. Hence, the applications of spatial technologies in biomedical research have remarkably improved our understanding of the pathogenesis of cancers.APPLICATIONS OF SPATIAL OMICS TECHNOLOGIES IN ONCOLOGY DRUG DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENTBy Hua Gong, Global Head of Translational Medicine and Clinical Biomarker, Zai Lab (US) LLC Hua Gong
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