On June 11, 2025, researchers from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in collaboration with the National Center for Genomic Analysis and the University of Adelaide, unveiled a groundbreaking single-cell RNA analysis method called STAMP.

STAMP is significantly more cost-effective, reducing analysis costs from $3.56 million to just $75,000 for profiling immune cells from 1,000 individuals, making it 47 times cheaper and more scalable than traditional techniques.

This innovative method allows for the simultaneous analysis of up to a million cells, vastly surpassing the tens of thousands typically analyzed by current methods.

The STAMP technique involves fixing individual cells onto microscopy slides, preserving their shape and gene expression, and employing fluorescent molecules to identify specific RNA sequences.

In addition to providing quantitative data, STAMP enables scientists to visually examine cells, enhancing the understanding of gene expression in both health and disease contexts.

In practical tests, STAMP demonstrated its sensitivity by successfully detecting two cancer cells within a sample of approximately 850,000 cells, highlighting its potential applications in cancer research.

Unlike conventional single-cell RNA sequencing methods that introduce bias based on cell shape, STAMP avoids this issue by conducting analysis on slides, allowing for a more diverse representation of cell types.

The accessibility of STAMP, as most research institutions are equipped with basic microscopy capabilities, aims to democratize single-cell RNA analysis for researchers lacking extensive funding or specialized equipment.

The study detailing STAMP was published in the journal Cell and involved a collaborative effort supported by various grants from the European Union and national research organizations.

The research team included co-first authors Emanuele Pitino, Anna Pascual-Reguant, and Felipe Segato Dezem, emphasizing the collaborative nature of this significant advancement in biomedical research.