IsoPlexis与Berkeley Lights已于2023年4月正式合并成立新公司PhenomeX。作为PhenomeX，我们将利用两家公司在各自领域开拓的尖端技术充分探索每个细胞的潜能，推动功能细胞生物学迈向新纪元，以促进人类健康的发展。

您是否对我们的新名字感到好奇？

——小编借此机会来和您分享我们名字的由来！

Q1：什么是Phenome?

Phenome，即表型组，是指一个细胞或生物体所表达的所有表型特征的集合，它是生物学中所有问题的核心。该术语最早由Davis在1949年首次使用，"我们在此建议将细胞外的、非自生部分的总和称为表型组。表型组（phenome）是表型 （phenotype）的物质基础，就像基因组（genome）是基因型（genotype）的物质基础一样。" [1]" role="presentation" style="display: inline-block; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">${}^{[1]}$ 。虽然Phenome这个术语已经使用了很多年，但不同领域的科学家们对phenome的解读仍稍有不同 [2−6]" role="presentation" style="display: inline-block; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">${}^{[2-6]}$ 。Life’s definition, as it stands now, is akin to a menu. It is not one thing but a series of things, a set of behaviors, a series of processes, not a single property. To be living, an organism must have the capacity to reproduce, to grow, to metabolize, to adapt to stimuli, and to maintain its internal milieu.
—Siddhartha Mukherjee“The Song of the Cell”

Q2：功能性细胞生物学将迎来怎样的全新时代？

功能性细胞生物学的发展始于对免疫细胞的认识和流式细胞仪的出现，在这场知识革新中，科学家们深入了解了T细胞的功能及其抵抗传染病的机制 [7]" role="presentation" style="display: inline-block; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">${}^{[7]}$ 。此后，在基因组研究上的重大突破使科学家获得了改变T细胞受体的能力，并创造出例如CAR-T这样的新型疗法 [8−10]" role="presentation" style="display: inline-block; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">${}^{[8-10]}$ 。随着我们对生物理解范围的不断扩大，一个新的Phenome时代已经到来，科学家们被赋予尖端的技术去探索每个细胞的功能表型组以获取最优的治疗策略 [11−13]" role="presentation" style="display: inline-block; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">${}^{[11-13]}$ 。

Q3: 如何直接关联基因型和表型？

如今科学家们拥有各种实验手段及先进的仪器去研究细胞基因、蛋白、表型、功能，但这些实验结果往往是基于一个细胞群体并且相对独立的。单细胞测序技术的普及使科学家对基因的研究达到了单个细胞的精度，这也使得在同一个细胞上研究从基因、蛋白、表型到功能的渴求变得空前迫切。

您的解决方案可以是：

我们的技术独特地捕捉表型组（Phenome）的各个方面，包括基因、蛋白、表型，深入研究每个细胞的功能，为成千上万的实验室提供具有突破性的生物学解决方案。PhenomeX为广大科研人员提供单细胞功能表征平台及单细胞蛋白质组学平台两大前沿技术工具，产品组合覆盖从早期发现到临床研究，利用全面的细胞性状及功能信息去预测患者的反应并为开发最优的治疗手段提供至关重要的指导。

我们的名字PhenomeX包括两个部分：Phenome代表我们的技术可以研究每个细胞的表型组，了解每个细胞的完整功能。X代表我们的技术可以将成千上万个细胞同时进行比较，充分探索表型组的多样性。

参考资料：

1. Davis BD (January 1949). "The Isolation of Biochemically Deficient Mutants of Bacteria by Means of Penicillin". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 35 (1): 1–10. Bibcode:1949PNAS...35....1D. doi:10.1073/pnas.35.1.1. PMC 1062948. PMID 16588845.
2. Loeffler M, Bratke T, Paulus U, Li YQ, Potten CS (May 1997). "Clonality and life cycles of intestinal crypts explained by a state dependent stochastic model of epithelial stem cell organization". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 186 (1): 41–54. Bibcode:1997JThBi.186...41L. doi:10.1006/jtbi.1996.0340. PMID 9176636.
3. Varki A, Altheide TK (December 2005). "Comparing the human and chimpanzee genomes: searching for needles in a haystack". Genome Research. 15 (12): 1746–58. doi:10.1101/gr.3737405. PMID 16339373.
4. Siebner HR, Callicott JH, Sommer T, Mattay VS (November 2009). "From the genome to the phenome and back: linking genes with human brain function and structure using genetically informed neuroimaging". Neuroscience. 164 (1): 1–6. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2009.09.009. PMC 3013363. PMID 19751805.
5. Furbank, Robert T.; Tester, Mark (December 2011). "Phenomics--technologies to relieve the phenotyping bottleneck". Trends in Plant Science. 16 (12): 635–644. doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2011.09.005. ISSN 1878-4372. PMID 22074787.
6. Denny, Joshua C.; Ritchie, Marylyn D.; Basford, Melissa A.; Pulley, Jill M.; Bastarache, Lisa; Brown-Gentry, Kristin; Wang, Deede; Masys, Dan R.; Roden, Dan M.; Crawford, Dana C. (2010-05-01). "PheWAS: demonstrating the feasibility of a phenome-wide scan to discover gene-disease associations". Bioinformatics. 26 (9): 1205–1210. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btq126. ISSN 1367-4811. PMC 2859132. PMID 20335276.
7. Herzenberg, Leonard A., et al. “Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting.” Scientific American, vol. 234, no. 3, 1976, pp. 108–18. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24950310.
8. Gross G, Waks T, Eshhar Z. Expression of immunoglobulin-T-cell receptor chimeric molecules as functional receptors with antibody-type specificity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 Dec;86(24):10024-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.86.24.10024. PMID: 2513569; PMCID: PMC298636.
9. International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium. Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome. Nature 409, 860–921 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35057062
10. History of Illumina Sequencing & Solexa Technology, 2017.
11. Spiegel, J.Y., Patel, S., Muffly, L. et al. CAR T cells with dual targeting of CD19 and CD22 in adult patients with recurrent or refractory B cell malignancies: a phase 1 trial. Nat Med 27, 1419–1431 (2021).
12. Creelan, B.C., Wang, C., Teer, J.K. et al. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte treatment for anti-PD-1-resistant metastatic lung cancer: a phase 1 trial. Nat Med 27, 1410–1418 (2021).
13. Diab A, Tykodi SS, Daniels GA et al. Bempegaldesleukin Plus Nivolumab in First-Line Metastatic Melanoma. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2021.