Recent advances in high-resolution lineage tracing technologies and single-cell genomics are allowing researchers to quantify cell state dynamics at unprecedented scales. Across cancer and immunity, studies are revealing a surprising amount of unique and heritable regulatory states, which has led to a rekindling interest in heritability across cell lineage. Researchers are now using clonal tracing to connect heterogeneity in cellular fates with their associated fate determinants. Through large scale perturbation assays and new low-input chromatin and methylation assays, researchers are beginning to unravel the mechanisms of clonal memory. Cellular memory can have a critical impact on the biology of many diseases, and affect processes such as cell manufacturing and engineering. 

Key Sesssion

The talks will be subdivided into these 5 themes: 

• Innovations in single-cell lineage recording
• Clonal memory in the immune system 
• Clonal memory in stem cells and development
• Clonal disorders and somatic mosaicism
• Clonal memory in cancer progression and therapy resistance  

Learning Objectives

• Which are the latest technologies for lineage recording? What are their advantages and limitations? What can they teach us about cellular behaviors? 
• What is lineage tracing teaching us about the clonal nature and evolution of cancer cells? 
• Which non-malignant systems show deterministic clonal heterogeneity? And how do cellular memories play a role in driving it?
• What is the latest evidence on the mechanisms of somatic non-malignant clones in development and aging? 
• How is clonal diversity of the immune system influencing our capacity to fight infections and maintain homeostasis? 

Educational Need

Single-cell lineage tracing is a method that is revolutionizing our understanding of biology across disciplines. This conference will be the first time that single-cell lineage tracing pioneers and experts meet together to discuss their most recent advances and light up the directions of the field in the next decade. Due to the huge impact of these technologies in recent years, we expect our meeting to raise great interest and become a multidisciplinary haven that will spark new collaborations and avenues of research across all fields of biomedicine.  

Example recent articles/reviews in the field: 

• Sankaran VG, Weissman JS, Zon LI. Cellular barcoding to decipher clonal dynamics in disease. Science, 2022.
• Fennell KA et al. Non-genetic determinants of malignant clonal fitness at single-cell resolution. Nature, 2022.
• Jindal K et al. Single-cell lineage capture across genomic modalities with CellTag-multi reveals fate-specific gene regulatory changes. Nature Biotechnology, 2023.
• Goyal Y et al. Diverse clonal fates emerge upon drug treatment of homogeneous cancer cells. Nature, 2023.
• Weng et al. Deciphering cell states and genealogies of human hematopoiesis. Nature, 2024.
• A mouse model with high clonal barcode diversity for joint lineage, transcriptomic, and epigenomic profiling in single cells. Cell, 2023. 
• Yang et al. Lineage tracing reveals the phylodynamics, plasticity, and paths of tumor evolution. Cell, 2022. 
• Delgado et al. Individual human cortical progenitors can produce excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Nature, 2022. 
• Choi et al. A time-resolved, multi-symbol molecular recorder via sequential genome editing. Nature, 2022. 
• Cohen, Zada, Wang et al. Identification of resistance pathways and therapeutic targets in relapsed multiple myeloma patients through single-cell sequencing. Nature Medicine, 2021. 

Target Audience

Researchers of all fields interested in, or already implementing lineage tracing tools in their labs to understand heterogeneity and cellular dynamics at the highest possible resolution.  
No other prior knowledge or pre-requisite skills are necessary. 

Although the programme has not yet been released, we are able to confirm that the conference should begin no earlier than 14:00 with opening comments on 04 May. The conference will conclude no later than 12:30 on 07 May 2025.