Single-cell analysis tools for drug discovery and development

The genetic, functional or compositional heterogeneity of healthy and diseased tissues presents major challenges in drug discovery and development. Such heterogeneity hinders the design of accurate disease models and can confound the interpretation of biomarker levels and of patient responses to specific therapies. The complex nature of virtually all tissues has motivated the development of tools for single-cell genomic, transcriptomic and multiplex proteomic analyses. Here, we review these tools and assess their advantages and limitations. Emerging applications of single cell analysis tools in drug discovery and development, particularly in the field of oncology, are discussed

Realization of Giant Magnetoelectricity in Helimagnets

We show that low field magnetoelectric (ME) properties of helimagnets Ba0.5Sr1.5Zn2(Fe1-xAlx)(12)O-22 can be efficiently tailored by the Al-substitution level. As x increases, the critical magnetic field for switching electric polarization is systematically reduced from similar to 1 T down to similar to 1 mT, and the ME susceptibility is greatly enhanced to reach a giant value of 2.0 x 10(4) ps/m at an optimum x = 0.08. We find that control of the nontrivial orbital moment in the octahedral Fe sites through the Al substitution is crucial for fine-tuning the magnetic anisotropy and obtaining the conspicuously improved ME characteristics.open11961sciescopu