John: Jasime, great to have you! So to start, can you please tell us a bit about yourself and your roles at Abiosciences?

Jasmine: Thanks, John! I have a background in molecular and neurobiology, but my work has spanned diverse research areas. My career shifted when I joined Genentech after my postdoc. From 2013 to 2020, I was part of the NGS core, evaluating early single-cell technologies like Fluidigm C1, Takara ICELL8, Smart-seq2, and 10x Genomics for research and clinical use. I helped bring in cutting-edge approaches like VDJ immune profiling, single nuclei RNA-seq, and CITE-seq. Collaborating across disciplines, I saw how single-cell technologies revealed disease mechanisms and biomarkers.

In 2020, I joined Abiosciences to expand access to advanced single-cell and spatial transcriptomic technologies. I built the genomics lab, established infrastructure, and hired key staff. I manage daily lab operations, oversee workflows, and support experiments when needed. As in many startups, I wear multiple hats—handling procurement, evaluating new technologies, ensuring data quality, budgeting, and helping secure clients by addressing technical needs. I also work with our bioinformatics team on data analysis.

John: We would love to hear a bit about Abiosciences, as well of your team, too. Would you please share?

Jasmine: Absolutely! Abiosciences, Inc. was incorporated in California in 2020, and we are one of the subsidiaries of the parent company Analytical Biosciences.  Our founder Zemin Zhang started Analytical Biosciences with the goal of utilizing single cell genomic data to discover novel therapeutic targets and identify clinically relevant biomarkers. In addition to the research division that focuses on the drug discovery and product development, we have research services that offer genomic wet lab, bioinformatics and software to all our customers.

Our team consisted of many top-notch scientists who have worked at the pharma companies such as Genentech, BMS, AbbVie, as well as those who graduated from Beijing University with publications in Nature, Science and Cell. Within three years, our research team have built a strong pipeline with preclinical data supporting their possible role in cancer immune therapies.  For our research services, we have been supporting many pharma and biotech companies for their preclinical and clinical research. Our team not only obtained 10x Genomics certifications for multiple single-cell and spatial applications, but we also actively seek alternative platforms to support our customers’ needs.

John: What can you tell us about the core spatial biology platforms offered by Abiosciences?

Jasmine: We currently offer sequencing-based spatial transcriptome analyses. This includes 10x Genomics Fresh Frozen, Fixed Frozen and FFPE Visium. For Visium CytAssist, we also offer the latest Visium HD that has single cell resolution. We also offer multiplexed protein and RNA (detecting on the same tissue sections) through 10x Genomics’ Visium.

John: It goes without saying that end-to-end support for spatial biology experiments is important. How does Abiosciences accomplish this?

Jasmine: Yes, thanks for this question! We usually meet with the clients to understand their needs and obtain information of their sample types and storage conditions. We provide detailed information on how to prepare and ship their samples to us (frozen tissues, FFPE blocks, archived slides, or freshly sectioned slides). If the samples are freshly sectioned slides, we ask the customers to coordinate with us on time to ensure the experiments can be done as soon as we receive them. If the client sends us frozen tissues or FFPE blocks, we will section them and return tissues/blocks after the experiment.

Some of the additional services including RNA QC, pathology annotation and ROI region selection (if the tissues are larger than designated areas for spatial sequencing) were done in a more interactive fashion with our clients as the project move along. Once the tissue blocks and sections are selected for moving downstream spatial RNA-seq workflow, we then move very quickly to generate libraries and sequencing. We provide basic (QC only, free), standard and customized analysis for spatial data analysis once the sequencing raw data is completed. For standard and customized analyses, we offer weekly or bi-weekly meetings to discuss project objectives and analysis plans as well as follow up analyses. There are many email communications with our customers along the way to make sure they are up to date on the processes and each of the gating steps.

John: Who makes up most of your customer base—academics, biotech firms, or pharmaceutical companies?

Jasmine: We have all of these different clients from academia, biotech (medium size and start up) as well as large pharma companies. Academic lab often sent us more challenging samples (tissue microarray sections, archived slides, or more degraded tissues) whereas pharma sent us large projects with more standard tissue format.

John: That’s great to hear you have such a diversity customer base. Follow-up to the previous question - how do you tailor your services to meet the unique needs of each client?

Jasmine: This is a great question. I think communication is the key to a successful project as well as setting up expectations. We are very capable of doing extra work that is not in our service menu, but the client needs to know what to expect of their samples when we follow some of their directions for additional work or novel approaches. For example, we have one client who is interested in the epithelial cells in the monkey lung tissue. At first, we only talked about dissociating lung tissues into single cell suspension for single-cell RNA-seq. After sharing their reference paper with us, we realized we need to enrich the epithelial cells as the cell types of interest are just a fraction of the epithelial cells. We then worked with our customers to identify the methods of enrichment as well as piloting the experiment (antibody staining and FACSorting) before the actual experiment.  This entire process helps to build trust between us and our clients. It also helps to educate our clients what to expect of their data when these are more difficult sample types or protocols.

In another example, we had a client who would like to prepare tissue microarray (TMA) of 25 tumor samples to fit into one Visium capture area. We discussed some of the potential risk to make sure the client understood the risk. When we worked on this client’s samples, we paid extra attention to tissue detachment or any unevenness across multiple different tissues, and we communicated every step, including sharing H&E images prior to proceeding into spatial RNA-seq workflow.

John: What are the most common challenges your clients face when working with spatial biology technologies, and how do you help solve them?

Jasmine: The most common challenges are:

• Wanting to have single-cell resolution

• Sample types not being compatible to existing technologies

• Determining to perform analyses and combine them with other data

We generally discuss with our clients extensively on their needs. If they want single cell resolution, is there possibility of doing single cell workflow, rather than spatial? The technology has evolved so fast that there are now 2-3 different spatial platforms that offer single-cell resolutions, so this is now more of a bioinformatic challenge.  And regarding the second common challenge, we walk through pros and cons of different spatial workflow to understand what workflows are compatible with their sample types and needs. 

 Abiosciences have a team of bioinformatics engineers who can expertly select the most appropriate algorithm from current research publications to analyze the data. One of the most common requests is to combine multiple different data set for analysis, which we have done frequently. research.

John: What would you say really sets Abiosciences apart from other spatial service providers?

Jasmine: What sets Abiosciences apart from other service providers is our communication, speed and quality.  We discuss each project carefully with the clients to understand their unique sample types and what we can do to obtain the best data. Depending on the nature of the projects, we set out to either use standardized protocols or modify the protocols in order to improve sample quality.  We communicate with our customer throughout the project for anything that was unusual, and after the project closure to ensure customers satisfaction

To share a few customer feedback quotes:

• “Excellent service and communication throughout project!  Thanks to the Abio scientists for noticing the non-standard embedding of our FFPE samples, communicating potential issues and proactively contacting 10x for guidance.” 

• “Abio produced exactly what we needed. The service we got was top notch, punctual and the team at abio did not mind going the extra mile. Keep up the good work!” 

John: How do you see the spatial biology field reshaping the broader life sciences industry in the coming decade?

Jasmine: This is a timely question. Spatial proteomics has just been named method of the year in 2024 by Nature Methods. Spatial transcriptomics was also named method of the year in 2021. I think we are entering the accelerated phase of the spatial biology reshaping the disease diagnostics, drug discovery and personalized medicine.

Spatial biology is traditionally done by one or two molecules (either RNA or protein) due to the limitation of sample preparation, detection agents and methods. With the rapidly evolving technologies in spatial transcriptomics, multiplexed proteomics and the analysis algorithm that are developed by the scientific communities, we now can obtain single-cell resolution transcripts and proteins with spatial information. This spatial context is critical for understanding diseases like cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and autoimmune conditions, where cell-to-cell communication and tissue architecture are key.

For cancer drug treatment responses, it is critical to select treatments based on a tumor’s spatial characteristics rather than just genetic mutations. The ability to visualize and map immune cell infiltration in tumor tissues could help identify patients who are more likely to respond to immunotherapies. Furthermore, spatial biology is poised to integrate multi-omics fields (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics), creating multi-omics maps that reveal how all these layers interact spatially. This holistic view of biological systems will help scientists understand how different molecular pathways are interconnected within tissues and how they contribute to health and disease.

John: What is Abiosciences’ long-term vision for its role in the spatial biology field?

Jasmine: Abiosciences is positioning itself as a key player in the rapidly advancing spatial biology field by focusing on innovative technologies that enable high-resolution, high-throughput spatial analysis of tissues and cells. Our long-term vision revolves around creating tools and platforms that allow researchers and clinicians to visualize, map, and understand the spatial dynamics of biology at an unprecedented level of detail. This includes integrating multi-omics data (e.g., genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics) with spatial information to provide more comprehensive insights into disease mechanisms, drug responses, and personalized medicine.

Ultimately, Abiosciences aims to accelerate the discovery of new biomarkers, improve precision medicine, and drive advancements in tissue engineering and regenerative therapies by providing scalable, accessible solutions that bridge the gap between research and clinical applications in spatial biology. Our vision is not just to be a technology provider for our clients, but to enable breakthroughs that lead to tangible improvements in patient care and therapeutic development.

Contact Information for Abiosciences:

• email: bd_us@abiosciences.com

• phone: (650) 770-5619        

• address: 280 Utah Avenue, Suite 110, South San Francisco, CA 94080

• website