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The secret life of cells

Nature Methods volume 17, pages 7–10 (2020)Cite this article

Armed with a rapidly maturing toolbox for single-cell analysis, scientists are threading together multiple layers of omic data to assemble rich portraits of cellular identity and function.

After generations of crude stereotyping, biologists have come to terms with a simple fact: every cell has its own rich and complex inner life. And whereas past studies employed relatively broad terms to categorize cell types on the basis of their physical features or a handful of protein markers, today’s powerful technologies for ‘omic’ analysis have laid bare the limits of what can be understood at the bulk tissue scale.

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  1. Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Michael Eisenstein

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  1. Michael Eisenstein
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Correspondence to Michael Eisenstein.

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Eisenstein, M. The secret life of cells. Nat Methods 17, 7–10 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-019-0698-y

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