Single-Cell Multiomics Instruments

The BD Rhapsody^™ single-cell platform has been instrumental in advancing our translational research projects in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) at Stanford. With the BD Rhapsody^™ platform, we have been successful in robustly capturing traditionally difficult to isolate cell types (e.g. neutrophils) from intestinal biopsies. The platform has also enabled us to multiplex a large number of samples, capture significantly more cells, and perform advanced analyses combining whole transcriptomics with paired TCR and BCR sequencing.

The BD Rhapsody^™ single-cell platform has been key for advancing our studies deciphering immunoregulatory networks in cancer and neglected diseases. We identified the cellular immune landscape using scarce human samples from tumors, lesions, and peripheral blood. We multiplexed four patient samples per cartridge using 10,000+ cells each to determine the activation state/functional potential of leukocytes in conjunction with their TCR or BCR variable region usage, thereby, allowing analysis of antigen specific responses with functional activity.

The BD Rhapsody^™ single-cell platform has been a key tool for the publication of our clinical research. It allowed us to study gene expression from immune populations of frozen PBMCs from people living with HIV after a nutritional intervention. After the analysis, we got very interesting information about the changes in genes that were up or downregulated before and after the intervention. These subtle changes would not have been discovered without the use of a powerful, highly sensitive technique such as the BD Rhapsody^™ single-cell platform.

We prefer the Rhapsody^™ system for single cell RNA-Seq on our samples as it allows us to see what we have loaded before committing to expensive downstream analysis. The imaging is also indispensable for visualizing rare cancer cells in our liquid biopsy applications, as it provides insight even before characterizing the multiomic profile.

We as an early access user have adapted and rapidly expanded Rhapsody^™ single cell multi-omics (WT, VDJ, AbSeq, and scATAC) services to a broad range of academic and industrial users. Our customers love BD Rhapsody^™ 's super high capture capacity with multiplexing (SMK) approaches in the HT mode. It's robust, powerful, and cost-effective. The TCR/BCR Next works wonderfully as promised. The call rate of paired VDJ chains  is superior to almost all other single cell platforms.

The BD Rhapsody^™ single-cell platform is an innovative device that lowers the threshold for single-cell transcriptomic research. It is highly effective in studying multiple samples simultaneously due to its multiplexing efficiency, utilizing various antibodies developed by BD over time. Additionally, since it does not use microfluidics for cell separation, it avoids clogging issues, making it suitable for studying cells from precious tissue samples.

The BD Rhapsody^™ System has become one of our lab's most important single-cell analysis tools. Its precision, efficiency, and scalability have enabled us to uncover insights across a range of hematological cancers and healthy hematopoiesis at unprecedented resolution. It excels in its ability to generate high-quality single-cell proteo-genomics data of several hundreds of surface markers alongside transcriptomics data. Its intuitive design and high reproducibility has undoubtedly accelerated our research and opened up new avenues for discovery.