UMN Single Cell Symposium 2026

Tuesday, June 2, 2026
8:30 AM – 12:30 PM
1-125 CCRB  
Register

Over the past decade, single-cell genomics has advanced at an unprecedented pace, fundamentally reshaping the way biological questions are formulated and addressed. The ability to interrogate individual cells has revealed gene expression dynamics and cellular heterogeneity that are often obscured in bulk tissue analyses. As technologies now enable the simultaneous profiling of millions of cells, the field faces new challenges related to experimental design, error and bias mitigation, and the analysis and interpretation of increasingly large and complex datasets.

This symposium aims to bring together UMN single-cell researchers to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. The program will feature in-depth presentations from experts specializing in transplant immunology and avian reproductive physiology; updates on emerging informatics strategies and single-cell platforms; a Lightning Talk Competition highlighting challenges and lessons learned; and a guided tour of the UMGC CoLab facility, which provides training resources in single-cell workflows.

Topics to be covered include:

Single-cell genomics in avian reproductive physiology
Single-cell genomics in transplant immunology
Single-cell Lightning Talks
Single-cell informatics
Single-cell technologies

Expand all

Agenda and Registration

Agenda

8:30 AM - Check-in and light refreshments (no breakfast)
9:00 AM - Welcome and intro, Kenny Beckman, PhD, UMGC Director
9:10 AM - Kahina Boukherroub, Assistant Professor, PhD, CFANS, Animal Science
9:35 AM - Sabarinathan Ramachandran, PhD, Associate Professor, Medicine, Surgery
10:00 AM - Part One: Lightning Talks
10:20 AM - Coffee break
10:40 AM - Part Two: Lightning Talks
11:00 AM - Audience voting
11:10 AM - Jitu George, PhD, UMGC Single-Cell Manager
11:25 AM - Christine Henzler, PhD, MSI Co-Director of Research Informatics
11:40 AM - Questions and answers for the cores, lightning talk winner announced
12:00 PM - Networking and UMGC CoLab open house
12:30 PM - Adjourn 

Registration

This event is open to UMN researchers. Please register for the symposium so we know you plan to attend.

Register

Lightning Talk Competition

The symposium will feature a Lightning Talk Competition highlighting single-cell research from across the University of Minnesota. Selected presenters will deliver 5-minute talks on completed or ongoing work that emphasize experimental outcomes, challenges, optimizations, and lessons learned. The top presentation, as voted on by the audience, will receive $2,500 in UMGC-supported labor and a 4-reaction kit from 10x Genomics toward a future single-cell project.

Talk 1: Joshua Krueger, graduate student (Branden Moriarity lab), Single-Cell Sequencing Reveals ILC1-Like Reprogramming in Armored CAR-NK Cells

Talk 2: Peter Lee, researcher (Laura Stone lab), Mapping The Mouse Prefrontal Cortex: Resolving Cell-Type Heterogeneity and Signaling via Reference-Based Single-Nuclei Genomics

Talk 3: Junyu Zhu, graduate student (Ming Xu lab), Senolytic Remodeling of Obese Human Visceral Adipose Tissue at Single-Nucleus Resolution

Talk 4: Enoc Granados Centeno, graduate student (Michael Farrar lab), Navigating challenges in massively scaled, fixed-cell scRNA-seq and CITE-seq of rare leukemia subsets

Talk 5: Maria Olson, researcher (Monica Campo lab), Lessons Learned from Two Single-Cell Sequencing Workflows

Talk 6: Adam Genda, graduate student (Zohar Sachs lab), Quantification of integration performance in single cell transcriptional atlas highlights best-performing algorithm

More information about the lightning talks.

Location and Parking

Location: 
The Single Cell Symposium is hosted in the Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Building (2231 6th St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455) located on the East Bank of the University of 
Minnesota. Check-in will be available at the main entrance. 

Parking: 
For parking near CCRB, we suggest parking in the Maroon and Victory daily lots ($6/day without in/out privileges) located across the street. 

Additional transportation options: 
The Metro Green Line (Light Rail) and select campus buses have stops near CCRB. A variety of detailed campus maps can help you navigate to CCRB.

About the Cores

UMN Genomics Center

The University of Minnesota Genomics Center (UMGC) provides genomic technologies and services to researchers and clinicians at the University of Minnesota, and to external academic and industry scientists throughout the United States and internationally. The UMGC acquires state-of-the-art instrumentation and offers an array of services, including next-generation sequencing, expression analysis, genotyping, single-cell and spatial genomics, metagenomics, and related support services such as nucleic acid extraction and quality control.

Minnesota Supercomputing Institute

The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) provides advanced research computing infrastructure and expertise to the University of Minnesota research and scholarly community and the State of Minnesota in order to advance and accelerate research and foster innovation and discoveries through advanced computing technologies, scientific computing, and informatics, application development, and services.

This event is co-organized by the UMN Genomics Center and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. Contact [email protected] with questions or comments.