A diverse population of microglial cells resides in the brain. Similar to immune cells, microglial cells respond to minute changes in their environment. Sometimes this response is beneficial and other times detrimental. Scientists are working to tease apart the dynamic role of microglial response in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

In this episode, Tiffany Garbutt from The Scientist’s Creative Services team spoke with Samuel Marsh, a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Beth Stevens at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, about how he uses single cell technology and spatial transcriptomics to better understand the role of microglia in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis.

LabTalk is a special edition podcast produced by The Scientist Creative Services Team, where we explore topics at the leading edge of innovative research. This episode is brought to you by 10x Genomics, which builds solutions for interrogating biological systems at a resolution and scale that matches the complexity of biology. Their rapidly expanding suite of products, which includes instruments, consumables, and software, enables fundamental discoveries across multiple research areas, including cancer, immunology, and neuroscience.