Novel Technologies for Programming Human Cell Fate

The reprogramming field has been firmly established, where we now have the capability of engineering a variety of cell identities. However, the protocols to generate target cell types are often inefficient and lack fidelity, with the engineered cells not fully recapitulating target identity. Previous studies aiming to assess and improve cell engineering were challenged by the cellular heterogeneity arising during reprogramming. Now, with recent technological and analytical advances, we have the resolution to study reprogramming and differentiation at unprecedented resolution. For example, novel single-cell technologies can enhance cell engineering, since they allow for a deep molecular characterisation of the engineered cell states and therefore enable the quantification of efficiency, precision and accuracy of existing protocols. Furthermore, single-cell atlases of primary developing and adult tissues serve as an essential reference for cell engineering and allow for the prediction of the requirements to design and generate a given fate. Enabling these engineering strategies to be realised, the fields of CRISPR engineering and synthetic biology are offering new tools to manipulate cell function and fate.

This Workshop unites experts in human cell fate engineering and experts in the manipulation and characterisation of single cells. The goal is to fully understand the molecular steps underlying the transformation of one cellular identity into another. The cross-disciplinary selection of speakers spans the fields of cell fate engineering and emerging technologies to analyse and manipulate cells at single-cell resolution.

Presentations will cover the following themes:

• Direct lineage reprogramming approaches
• Assessment of reprogramming inefficiency and infidelity
• Engineering cells with defined identity through new methods
• De novo predictions of factors and conditions for target cell type generation

The ultimate aim is to predict the outcome of the application of certain transcription factors/small molecules/synthetic gene circuits to precisely engineer identity of clinically valuable human cells. We envision an exceptional opportunity for interactions and establishment of new collaborations that will bring us a big step closer to reprogramming human cell identity at high efficiency and fidelity.