Scale Biosciences (Scale Bio), a leader in innovative and scalable single cell analysis solutions, today announced the launch of the “100 Million Cell Challenge,” a global initiative aimed at pushing the boundaries of single-cell genomics research.

This first-of-its-kind program calls on researchers worldwide to submit proposals for large-scale single cell projects, with the goal of collectively analyzing 100 million cells or more across diverse biological systems and research areas. Selected projects will benefit from early access to Scale Bio’s newest workflow, QuantumScale, a single cell RNA sequencing technology capable of processing up to 2 million cells per run with unparalleled efficiency, data quality, and low cost per cell.

“The 100 Million Cell Challenge represents a pivotal moment in single cell genomics research,” said Giovanna Prout, President and CEO of Scale Bio. “By bringing together researchers from various disciplines and providing them with advanced technology from Scale Bio and our collaborators, we aim to catalyze new discoveries that will shape the future of precision medicine, further our understanding of complex biological systems, and fuel the explosion of generative AI that is being leveraged in biology.”

Key features of the Challenge include:

• Minimum project size of one million cells, with no maximum limit
• Collaboration with industry-leading partners for sequencing and data analysis services
• Substantially subsidized costs for library preparation and sequencing services

Scale Bio is proud to collaborate with Ultima Genomics for accurate, low-cost, and high-throughput sequencing, and NVIDIA for its accelerated computing platform. These collaborations will help ensure that participating researchers have access to state-of-the-art resources throughout the entire workflow.

“We're excited to support the ‘100 Million Cell Challenge’ with our sequencing technology,” said Gilad Almogy, CEO of Ultima Genomics. “The magnitude of this initiative aligns perfectly with our mission to enable researchers to generate and access genomic information at scale.”

“Effectively training foundation models requires an immense amount of data. The dramatic increase in high-resolution single cell experiments from this project will help significantly impact translational research,” said George Vacek, Global Head of Genomics Alliances at NVIDIA. “With NVIDIA GPU-powered analysis, researchers can rapidly gain meaningful insights from data, accelerating scientific discovery.”

Dr. Ronan Chaligne, Director, Single Cell Innovation Lab at MSK Cancer Center, emphasized the importance of increased scale in single cell studies: “The ability to analyze millions of cells in a single experiment is a game-changer. It will allow us to detect rare cell populations, understand cellular heterogeneity at an unprecedented level, and potentially uncover entirely new biological phenomena. This Challenge will accelerate our understanding of complex diseases and lead to novel therapeutic approaches.”

Researchers interested in participating can submit their project proposals from August 8 to October 15, 2024. Projects will be evaluated on a rolling basis as soon as they are submitted. Selected projects will be announced at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) Annual Meeting in November 2024.

For more information about the 100 Million Cell Challenge and to submit a proposal, visit scale.bio/100MillionCells.

About Scale Biosciences

At Scale Bio, we are committed to accelerating scientific breakthroughs by providing innovative single cell omics solutions that redefine accessibility, flexibility, and scalability, empowering researchers to unlock the full potential of single cell omics. Leveraging our core massively parallelized single cell barcoding technology, we offer a range of advanced workflow solutions that maximize insights delivered with every experiment and sample type, allowing scientists to generate more data, analyze more samples, and explore more omics, cost efficiently and with unprecedented ease. Founded by scientists and technologists with experience across a range of multiomics disciplines, Scale Bio has attracted financing from leading life sciences tools investors including ARCH Venture Partners, BNG01, and Tao Capital. Scale Bio is headquartered in San Diego, Calif. Visit scale.bio to learn more.

About Ultima Genomics

Ultima Genomics is unleashing the power of genomics at scale. The Company's mission is to continuously drive the scale of genomic information to enable unprecedented advances in biology and improvements in human health. With humanity on the cusp of a biological revolution, there is a virtually endless need for more genomic information to address biology's complexity and dynamic change—and a further need to challenge conventional next-generation sequencing technologies. Ultima's revolutionary new sequencing architecture drives down the costs of sequencing to help overcome the tradeoffs that scientists and clinicians are forced to make between the breadth, depth and frequency with which they use genomic information. The new sequencing architecture was designed to scale far beyond conventional sequencing technologies, lower the cost of genomic information and catalyze the next phase of genomics in the 21st century. To learn more, visit www.ultimagenomics.com/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240814525644/en/