Scientist Stories: Amos Tanay, Genomic and Epigenomic Regulation at Multiple Scales

13 Sept 2024 · 17 min
16:36

In this interview, Professor Amos Tanay discusses the role of single‑cell epigenomics in the context of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA). He explains how emerging single‑cell technologies—RNA‑seq, bisulfite (DNA‑methylation) sequencing, ATAC‑seq, Hi‑C, and multi‑omics approaches—enable the systematic profiling of millions of cells, revealing the regulatory potential and dynamic cell‑state trajectories that underlie tissue organization. Tanay highlights the scaling challenges of generating hundreds of thousands to millions of reads per cell, the economic and technical constraints, and the need for robust statistical frameworks to extract signal from sparse data. He delves into the conceptual debate between deterministic and stochastic models of cellular regulation, arguing that single‑cell epigenomic maps can help resolve this by providing hierarchical taxonomies of cell states. The conversation also covers the importance of integrating epigenomic data with transcriptomic profiles to infer regulatory networks, the future of high‑throughput, cost‑effective assays, and how these advances will empower the HCA’s goal of a comprehensive, mechanistic cell‑type atlas. Throughout, Tanay balances optimism about the transformative potential of single‑cell epigenomics with a realistic appraisal of current technical limitations.

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