Principal investigator
Mats Nilsson
In situ sequencing and targeted molecular detection in intact tissue.
Nilsson invented the padlock probe: a circularising oligonucleotide that, combined with rolling-circle amplification, detects a specific DNA or RNA sequence at the place in the cell where it sits. That chemistry became the basis for in situ sequencing, which reads nucleic acids inside preserved tissue rather than after extraction, and is the foundation of Xenium (10x).
The practical consequence is that more than a hundred transcripts can be localised and counted at subcellular resolution in a single section, giving a topographic view of which cells are present, what they are expressing, and which neighbours they sit next to.
The group applies this to developmental and disease atlases, mapping tumour subclones, and immune profiling, where the spatial arrangement of cells carries information no dissociated measurement retains.
He is Professor of Biochemistry at Stockholm University and SciLifeLab, and Director of the Spatial Biology Platform at SciLifeLab Stockholm. His technologies have repeatedly left the lab: selector probes commercialised as the HaloPlex assay, Cartana's in situ RNA analysis acquired by 10x Genomics and built into Xenium, and Haga Bioscience founded on work from his group.