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A raft of new imaging tools stole the spotlight at the industry showcase Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) conference held in Marco Island, Florida, in February. Several companies, including NanoString Technologies, 10x Genomics and ReadCoor, have launched, or are preparing for launch, platforms that allow spatial detection of particular transcripts and even proteins in tissue slices. Some products are aimed at the research market; others may have advantages in clinical settings and can be used on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded samples. At the same time, single-cell visualization techniques are taking the research community by storm. The latest breakthrough, announced in Science, uses barcoded beads to visualize active genes in individual cells within tissue samples. Systems biologist Shalev Itzkovitz of the Weizmann Institute calls the technique, Slide-seq, “really impressive.” Slide-seq is just one of a rapidly growing family of techniques—including several commercial products and instruments—with which researchers can determine not only if and when a gene is turned on, but also where. According to Itzkovitz, “If it can give you the complete transcriptome in every half-micron by half-micron volume of tissue, that’s the dream.”