10/19/2026
Today, we are thrilled to announce the first shipment of Cytos™, a first-of-its-kind multiomics workflow that captures guide RNA, cell morphology, protein expression, and whole transcriptome from the very same single cell in a single run.
What early users are saying:
“AI-driven drug discovery needs more than gene expression. Integrating transcriptomics with molecular activities and subcellular organization reveals not only which genes change, but also how drugs alter protein function, signaling, and the spatial organization of cellular processes. This multimodal view that Element’s Cytos’ offers provides the high-dimensional readouts necessary to train AI models that can resolve drug mode of action and polypharmacology, predict complex cellular responses, and ultimately design molecules with desired biological activities,” said Lucas Pelkmans, PhD, Professor of Systems Biology at the University of Zurich.
“Imaging has been the missing readout in pooled CRISPR screening," said Sejla Salic-Hainzl, CTO of https://bit.ly/3o1ANHr. "Cytos finally closes that gap - and the fact that it layers transcriptomics and a protein panel on top of imaging in a single experiment is what makes it really powerful. For human iPSC-derived CNS cells, where phenotypes are complex and multi-dimensional, this is exactly the capability the field has been waiting for. We're excited to build this technology into our service offering and help translate that richer biology into better drug targets for our customers.
“Cytos opens an entirely new opportunity for us,” said Tilmann Buerckstuemmer, CSO of Myllia Biotechnology. “We’ve built our reputation on CRISPR perturbation screens with single-cell transcriptomics. The addition of high-performance imaging as a readout lets us explore areas of biology we simply couldn’t reach before. With Cytos, customers can now assess how genetic perturbations change cell morphology and selected biomarkers of disease, thus generating new hypotheses for drug targets.”
More information about Cytos will be shared during Element's virtual Multiomics Showcase on November 4th. Read the full announcement: https://bit.ly/4BgYHCH.
