Brief CV: Mauro is the CEO and Co-Founder of SCD. He studied systems biology at the University of Amsterdam and then spent one year at Mount Sinai in New York City to work on cellular reprogramming. At the conclusion of the program, he returned to the Netherlands to pursue his PhD in Single Cell Transcriptomics from Utrecht University in the lab of Alexander van Oudenaarden, a pioneer of single-cell sequencing technology. After spending thousands of hours setting up and running a manual single-cell sequencing protocol, Mauro was inspired to automate the process and developed a method called SORT-seq. This made the technology radically more accessible and local demand for single-cell sequencing surged. A local facility was launched and run by Judith Vivié, SCD’s other co-founder. After demand for the facilities services continued to increase beyond local academic researchers, Judith and Mauro teamed up to spin out SCD as the world’s first dedicated commercial single-cell sequencing CRO.
Abstract: The drug discovery process is often hampered by bottlenecks, such as identifying the most effective targets and optimizing leads efficiently. Traditional methods can be time-consuming and prone to binary, inaccurate readouts. Single-cell sequencing has emerged as a transformative approach, providing deep insights into cellular heterogeneity and cell type-specific expression, significantly enhancing the speed and precision of target discovery. However, the myriad of available methods, sample preparation and bioinformatics options can lead to picking the wrong approach, causing further delays or missed targets. In this talk, we will discuss how adaptations to existing single-cell methods can accelerate the drug discovery pipeline by finding more and better targets through whole genome CRISPR screening, targeted sequencing for biodistribution lead optimization, and target validation. We will also highlight our newly launched platform, Discovery-seq, which leverages single-cell methodology to enable high-throughput whole-transcriptome screening for thousands of samples. Our company integrates these cutting-edge technologies with robust data analysis support to ensure rapid, reliable target identification, accelerating the drug discovery process.
