# Development Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $273,772

## Abstract

Project Summary
Breakthroughs in single-cell omics are providing unprecedented opportunities to investigate diverse biological
questions including tissue heterogeneity, cell activity dynamics, fate determination and cellular responses to
stress. Since first being described in 2009, single-cell technologies have developed rapidly, and currently most
laboratories are performing single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) using equipment from 10X Genomics
based on droplet microfluidics. While powerful, this approach is expensive and relatively low throughput. An
additional drawback to single cell technologies is that they lose spatial information due to tissue dissociation,
so the physiological context cells in their niche is unknown. Understanding cellular gene expression in the
context of tissue organization and morphology is critical to understanding cellular function and this is
particularly true in chronic kidney disease (CKD) where injury, repair and fibrosis initiation occurs in the
tubulointerstitial niche. The SCORE Core is a Resource Development Core that will address these limitations
by developing and operationalizing cutting-edge technologies, and the computational pipelines required to
interpret resulting data, to support the Biomedical Resource Cores and the broad kidney research community
nationally. The aim of the SCORE Core is to develop new protocols and code that will illuminate the
pathobiology of CKD, beginning with split pool barcoding based single nuclei multi-omics and high resolution in
situ sequencing-based spatially resolved transcriptomics. We will develop protocols to employ simultaneous
high-throughput ATAC and RNA expression with sequencing (SHARE-seq), a highly scalable approach for
measurement of chromatin accessibility and gene expression in the same single cell, and the computational
pipelines to analyze the resulting data. In addition, the SCORE Core will develop the protocols for high
resolution in situ-sequencing based spatial transcriptomics using the Xenium platform. These protocols and
code will be highly enabling to users in our Center, and to the Consortium broadly. The SCORE Core will also
interact with the National O’Brien Consortium and Steering Committee to prioritize the development of future
cutting edge technologies as they become available.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10915656
- **Project number:** 5U54DK137332-02
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** BENJAMIN D. HUMPHREYS
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $273,772
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-01 → 2028-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10915656

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10915656, Development Core (5U54DK137332-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10915656. Licensed CC0.

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