On May 14th, professor ZHAO Fangqing from the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of Chinese Academy of Sciences for academic exchange. He delivered a lecture titled "Development and Application of Single-cell and Spatial Multi-omics Technologies". 

The rapid development of sequencing and multi-omics technologies has propelled life sciences into the era of big data. Given the enormous and rapidly growing volume of data, there is an urgent need for more efficient statistical models and algorithmic tools to extract and interpret this data, laying the technical foundation for a deeper understanding of disease mechanisms and targeted drug development. Prof. ZHAO detailed his team's recent significant achievements in the field of single-cell and spatial multi-omics technologies. They have developed and optimized a circular RNA library construction and sequencing workflow based on nanopore RNA programmable real-time sequencing technology. Combined with the newly developed CIRI-long algorithm, this method allows accurate identification and full-length reconstruction of circular RNA, providing crucial methodological tools for functional research on circular RNA. The team also proposed a high-throughput tracking technology for extracellular vesicle (EV) heterogeneity, SEVtras. By establishing an EV heterogeneity tracking algorithm and introducing an EV secretion activity index, they mapped the physiological activity states of different cell types at the extracellular level. Applying this algorithm to large existing single-cell datasets, they systematically mapped the heterogeneity spectrum of EV secretion across different cell types, discovering a close relationship between lymphocyte EV secretion activity and pancreatic cancer invasion. This finding can serve as an early predictive marker for tumors, offering new insights for the discovery of clinical biomarkers. Finally, Prof. ZHAO introduced his team’s latest development of a spatial proteomics and metabolomics analysis technology based on microfluidics and tomography. 

Attendees listened attentively to the presentation and engaged in discussions on the potential applications of single-cell and spatial multi-omics technologies in their respective research fields. 

Prof. ZHAO Fangqing is a doctoral advisor at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, a recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, and a specially appointed professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He currently serves as the director of the Genomic Informatics Special Committee of the Chinese Society of Bioinformatics and is an associate editor or editorial board member of journals such as Briefings in Bioinformatics, Science Bulletin, and Science China Life Sciences. His research focuses on developing efficient algorithm models and experimental techniques to explore the structural composition and variation patterns of human microbiota and non-coding RNAs, aiming to elucidate their relationships with health and disease. He has led over ten National Natural Science Foundation projects and served as chief scientist for key R&D programs of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Central Military Commission’s Science and Technology Committee. In recent years, he has published over 90 papers as a corresponding author in journals such as Cell, Gut, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Methods, and Nature Computational Science, with more than ten of these being highly cited papers in ESI.