Researcher creates 'Instagram' of immune system, blending science and technology

March 07, 2018
Using artificial intelligence and bioinformatics, researchers can create a two-dimensional mapping that can read test results, creating an Instagram of millions of blood cells.
Using artificial intelligence and bioinformatics, researchers can create a two-dimensional mapping that can read test results, creating an Instagram of millions of blood cells. Image provided by Dr. Carsten Krieg

Being on the cutting edge of science and technology excites Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) researcher Carsten Krieg, Ph.D. Each day, he walks into his lab that houses a mass cytometry machine aptly labeled Helios. Krieg explains how it can heat plasma up to 6,000 degrees Celsius, levels comparable to temperatures found on the sun.

This allows the German native, who recently joined the faculty of the Medical University of South Carolina’s departments of immunology and dermatology, to accomplish an interesting feat. He creates a sort of ‘Instagram’ of a person’s immune system. For cancer patients on experimental immunotherapy treatments, the practical application is obvious and exciting, he said.

“What I use here is a very new and nerdy technology, which is called mass cytometry, that allows you with a very high sensitivity to make pictures of your immune system. And this is possible because there's artificial intelligence, machine learning combined with algorithms that can make a very complex system easy to visualize.” Basically, how it works is that researchers stain cells using rare metal-conjugated antibodies that target surface and intracellular proteins. “Normally in biological tissues, there are no rare metals, so this technique offers greater sensitivity in detecting targets.”

Inside the Helios, the cells are ionized using an inductively-coupled plasma. The ions derived from each stained cell are maintained in discrete clouds that can be detected in a mass spectrometer. The technique can potentially detect up to 100 markers per cell, although, due to practical restrictions, about 40 are more realistic, he said. Then researchers use artificial intelligence and bioinformatics to create a two-dimensional mapping that can read the results, creating an Instagram of millions of blood cells.

Being on the cutting edge of science and technology excites Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) researcher Carsten Krieg, Ph.D. Each day, he walks into his lab that houses a mass cytometry machine aptly labeled Helios. Krieg explains how it can heat plasma up to 6,000 degrees Celsius, levels comparable to temperatures found on the sun.

This allows the German native, who recently joined the faculty of the Medical University of South Carolina’s departments of immunology and dermatology, to accomplish an interesting feat. He creates a sort of ‘Instagram’ of a person’s immune system. For cancer patients on experimental immunotherapy treatments, the practical application is obvious and exciting, he said.

“What I use here is a very new and nerdy technology, which is called mass cytometry, that allows you with a very high sensitivity to make pictures of your immune system. And this is possible because there's artificial intelligence, machine learning combined with algorithms that can make a very complex system easy to visualize.” Basically, how it works is that researchers stain cells using rare metal-conjugated antibodies that target surface and intracellular proteins. “Normally in biological tissues, there are no rare metals, so this technique offers greater sensitivity in detecting targets.”

Inside the Helios, the cells are ionized using an inductively-coupled plasma. The ions derived from each stained cell are maintained in discrete clouds that can be detected in a mass spectrometer. The technique can potentially detect up to 100 markers per cell, although, due to practical restrictions, about 40 are more realistic, he said. Then researchers use artificial intelligence and bioinformatics to create a two-dimensional mapping that can read the results, creating an Instagram of millions of blood cells.

“After DNA and the transcriptome, the exciting thing about this technology is the next step in evolution: we’re now looking at the proteome.”

The proteome is the complete set of proteins being expressed by a genome or cell at a certain time under certain conditions. “I am so excited about the work because it’s the next step in science. This actually is what makes the interactions happen, where the immune cell interacts with an immune cell or a tumor cell. We’re studying this whole networking of cells in your body and how they react toward your environment and in immunotherapy.

Doing real-time monitoring in patients based on their specific genetic make-up and the immunotherapy treatment they are receiving opens all kinds of research possibilities. This allows physicians to apply precision medicine to help patients and researchers to use systems biology to discover the mechanisms of disease, he said.

“I hope to make a difference in the clinic so that patients are on the right therapy from the start. Then on the research side, we want to understand how this works. Which elements do you need, when? Which element of the immune system needs to be kicked in?”