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Single-cell functional analysis is emerging as a key tool in modern biomedical research, offering an unprecedented lens into the heterogeneity of cellular behavior that underpins development, disease progression and therapeutic response. As the limitations of bulk assays become increasingly apparent, masking the stochastic and often rare events that occur at the individual cell level, the demand for tools that can resolve and interrogate function at single-cell resolution has grown greatly.
Today, single-cell technologies are not only dissecting genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic profiles but also enabling dynamic measurements of cellular functions, such as antigen binding, metabolic flux, cytokine secretion and intracellular signaling, with ever greater precision and throughput. These functional insights, especially when they can be linked to other multimodal data and imaging, are essential for decoding complex biological systems, from immune responses to neuronal networks, and for accelerating translational applications in precision medicine.
We spoke to Dr. Vikram Devgan, vice president of global marketing and product management at Bruker Cellular Analysis, at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2025 about their new Beacon Discovery Platform that was launched at the event, what it offers scientists and how it could change the single-cell analysis landscape.
Karen Steward, PhD (KS):
Senior Scientific Specialist
Technology Networks
Karen Steward holds a PhD in molecular microbiology and evolutionary genetics from the University of Cambridge. She moved into science writing in 2017 after over a decade as a research scientist.
For readers who may be unfamiliar with it, can you tell us about the Beacon Discovery Platform launched recently at AACR 2025?
Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management
Bruker
Vikram Devgan is the vice president of global marketing at Bruker Cellular Analysis, where he drives strategic growth and brand leadership in single-cell functional biology and has over 18 years of experience in the life sciences tools industry. He specializes in spatial biology, genomics and proteomics, with deep expertise in marketing disruptive technologies. Dr. Devgan earned his PhD in molecular and cellular biology, completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and holds an MBA in business integration from the University of Würzburg, Germany.
The Beacon Discovery platform is Bruker Cellular Analysis' newest addition to our optofluidic single-cell platform family. It was officially launched at AACR 2025 and is designed to bring live single-cell functional analysis to a broader range of researchers. Built on the core strengths of our Beacon technology, Beacon Discovery enables sequential, multiple assays on the same live cell, allowing researchers to profile dynamic biological responses in ways that were previously difficult or expensive to achieve. It’s a compact, benchtop instrument tailored for both academic labs and translational groups in biopharma, offering streamlined workflows, easy-to-use and intuitive software and reduced cost of ownership.
KS:
Senior Scientific Specialist
Technology Networks
Karen Steward holds a PhD in molecular microbiology and evolutionary genetics from the University of Cambridge. She moved into science writing in 2017 after over a decade as a research scientist.
Bruker Cell Analysis already offers the Beacon platform. Can you highlight the key differences? What prompted the creation of this new platform?
Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management
Bruker
Vikram Devgan is the vice president of global marketing at Bruker Cellular Analysis, where he drives strategic growth and brand leadership in single-cell functional biology and has over 18 years of experience in the life sciences tools industry. He specializes in spatial biology, genomics and proteomics, with deep expertise in marketing disruptive technologies. Dr. Devgan earned his PhD in molecular and cellular biology, completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and holds an MBA in business integration from the University of Würzburg, Germany.
Beacon Discovery builds on the capabilities of our existing Beacon platform but is optimized for accessibility, compactness and flexibility. The original Beacon platform is best suited for high-throughput applications in larger pharma or industrial labs where broader scale and automation are critical. Beacon Discovery, in contrast, is designed to serve individual research groups or small teams that need powerful live single-cell functional data but don’t necessarily have the budget or infrastructure for a full-scale Beacon system.
We developed this platform in response to increasing demand from immunologists, cell therapy researchers and translational scientists for more affordable access to single-cell functional profiling. The goal was to democratize optofluidic single-cell analysis, maintaining scientific rigor while lowering barriers to entry.
Senior Scientific Specialist
Technology Networks
Karen Steward holds a PhD in molecular microbiology and evolutionary genetics from the University of Cambridge. She moved into science writing in 2017 after over a decade as a research scientist.
There will clearly be a lot of data generated. Does the platform handle this, and if so, how flexible is it if you want to perform custom analyses?
VD:
Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management
Bruker
Vikram Devgan is the vice president of global marketing at Bruker Cellular Analysis, where he drives strategic growth and brand leadership in single-cell functional biology and has over 18 years of experience in the life sciences tools industry. He specializes in spatial biology, genomics and proteomics, with deep expertise in marketing disruptive technologies. Dr. Devgan earned his PhD in molecular and cellular biology, completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and holds an MBA in business integration from the University of Würzburg, Germany.
The Beacon Discovery platform includes an integrated data analysis suite that allows researchers to visualize and explore high-parameter single-cell data directly within the system’s software. We also provide export capabilities for those who want to work with their data in more advanced bioinformatics environments. The data output is flexible and well-organized, making it easy to integrate with custom pipelines or third-party tools.
KS:
Senior Scientific Specialist
Technology Networks
Karen Steward holds a PhD in molecular microbiology and evolutionary genetics from the University of Cambridge. She moved into science writing in 2017 after over a decade as a research scientist.
What do you anticipate will be some of the key application areas?
VD:
Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management
Bruker
Vikram Devgan is the vice president of global marketing at Bruker Cellular Analysis, where he drives strategic growth and brand leadership in single-cell functional biology and has over 18 years of experience in the life sciences tools industry. He specializes in spatial biology, genomics and proteomics, with deep expertise in marketing disruptive technologies. Dr. Devgan earned his PhD in molecular and cellular biology, completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and holds an MBA in business integration from the University of Würzburg, Germany.
Key application areas include immune cell profiling, CAR/TCR discovery, B-cell screening, antibody discovery, therapeutic cell characterization and translational biomarker discovery. We're also seeing strong interest from researchers studying autoimmune mechanisms and infectious diseases. Because Beacon Discovery supports sequential, multi-time-point assays on the same cell, it's ideal for investigating dynamic biological processes such as cell–cell interactions, time-resolved cytokine release or longitudinal immune responses.
KS:
Senior Scientific Specialist
Technology Networks
Karen Steward holds a PhD in molecular microbiology and evolutionary genetics from the University of Cambridge. She moved into science writing in 2017 after over a decade as a research scientist.
Are there any restrictions on the cell types that can be analyzed? If a researcher wants to look at a cell type the platform isn’t validated for, is there any support available for that?
VD:
Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management
Bruker
Vikram Devgan is the vice president of global marketing at Bruker Cellular Analysis, where he drives strategic growth and brand leadership in single-cell functional biology and has over 18 years of experience in the life sciences tools industry. He specializes in spatial biology, genomics and proteomics, with deep expertise in marketing disruptive technologies. Dr. Devgan earned his PhD in molecular and cellular biology, completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and holds an MBA in business integration from the University of Würzburg, Germany.
Beacon Discovery supports a broad range of suspension and adherent cell types, including primary immune cells, engineered cells and stem cell lines. If a user wants to work with a novel or unvalidated cell type, our team provides support through assay development services and scientific consultation. We have built the platform to be adaptable, and we welcome collaboration to help researchers push boundaries with new cell models or workflows.
KS:
Senior Scientific Specialist
Technology Networks
Karen Steward holds a PhD in molecular microbiology and evolutionary genetics from the University of Cambridge. She moved into science writing in 2017 after over a decade as a research scientist.
How has the platform been received so far? Are you able to share any real-world data yet or is it still too early days?
VD:
Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management
Bruker
Vikram Devgan is the vice president of global marketing at Bruker Cellular Analysis, where he drives strategic growth and brand leadership in single-cell functional biology and has over 18 years of experience in the life sciences tools industry. He specializes in spatial biology, genomics and proteomics, with deep expertise in marketing disruptive technologies. Dr. Devgan earned his PhD in molecular and cellular biology, completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and holds an MBA in business integration from the University of Würzburg, Germany.
The reception has been very encouraging. At AACR 2025, we saw strong enthusiasm from both academic and industry researchers who appreciated the cost-effectiveness, streamlined workflow and the flexibility of the platform. While it is still early for extensive published data, we have already completed early-access studies with several collaborators focused on T-cell polyfunctionality and B-cell antibody secretion profiling. These pilot studies have demonstrated clear advantages in speed and efficiency. We expect to begin sharing more detailed case studies and application notes over the coming months.
KS:
Senior Scientific Specialist
Technology Networks
Karen Steward holds a PhD in molecular microbiology and evolutionary genetics from the University of Cambridge. She moved into science writing in 2017 after over a decade as a research scientist.
How do you hope this will change the single-cell analysis landscape in the longer term?
VD:
Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management
Bruker
Vikram Devgan is the vice president of global marketing at Bruker Cellular Analysis, where he drives strategic growth and brand leadership in single-cell functional biology and has over 18 years of experience in the life sciences tools industry. He specializes in spatial biology, genomics and proteomics, with deep expertise in marketing disruptive technologies. Dr. Devgan earned his PhD in molecular and cellular biology, completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and holds an MBA in business integration from the University of Würzburg, Germany.
We hope that Beacon Discovery enables a broader community of researchers to ask more sophisticated functional questions at the single-cell level. By making dynamic, multiple single-cell functional assays more routine, we aim to shift the focus from static snapshots to a more holistic view of how cells behave over time. In the long term, we believe this will accelerate discoveries in cell therapy and therapeutic antibody development.
