SPACE (Spatial Profiling and Annotation Centre of Excellence) is a £5.25 million Cancer Research UK initiative launched in 2024 that democratises access to cutting-edge spatial biology technologies developed by IMAXT. The Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge — including the CAMCEAD group — provides the analysis and computing platform underpinning SPACE.
Cancer Research UK · Cancer Grand Challenges Phase 2 · £5.25 million · 2024
Awarded 2024
First CGC Phase 2 award
IoA Cambridge computing hub
What is SPACE?
SPACE — the Spatial Profiling and Annotation Centre of Excellence — is the successor initiative to IMAXT, awarded £5.25 million from Cancer Research UK in 2024 as the first recipient of Cancer Grand Challenges phase two funding. Where IMAXT developed a world-leading suite of spatial biology technologies, SPACE's mission is to democratise access to those tools, making them available to the wider cancer research community.
SPACE is led by Professor Greg Hannon (CRUK Cambridge Institute) alongside Dr Nicholas Walton and Dr Dario Bressan (University of Cambridge). The Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge — home to the CAMCEAD group — serves as the analysis and computing platform hub for SPACE, providing the large-scale data infrastructure and distributed computing expertise.
"Thanks to this continued funding from Cancer Grand Challenges, the IMAXT team is now making its data generation and analysis infrastructure available to the scientific community through SPACE."
— Professor Greg Hannon, CRUK Cambridge Institute
Cambridge and CAMCEAD's role
The Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge is one of the two host institutions for SPACE, providing the analysis and computing platform. CAMCEAD brings its expertise in large-scale data pipeline engineering, distributed cloud computing (via the IRIS National Facility) and AI-driven image analysis — built on decades of astronomical survey science — to the challenge of processing and managing the terabyte-scale spatial biology datasets generated by SPACE technologies.
This cross-disciplinary collaboration demonstrates the transferability of astronomical data science methods to biomedical research, and positions Cambridge as a unique bridge between the two fields.
Technology platform
SPACE provides access to the full suite of multi-omics technologies pioneered by IMAXT:
Spatial imaging
- STPT — Serial two-photon tomography for 3D whole-organ imaging
- 3D IMC — Three-dimensional Imaging Mass Cytometry
- HiFi — Hyperplexed Fluorescence Imaging
Molecular profiling
- ExSeq — Expansion in-situ sequencing
- MERFISH — Spatial transcriptomics
- DLP+ — Whole-genome single-cell sequencing
- WILD-Seq — Single-cell clonal barcoding
Data & visualisation
- Multi-omics data infrastructure and analysis pipelines
- Project Theia VR viewer for real-time 3D spatial data exploration
- Spatial proteomics and transcriptomics analysis
- Distributed computing on IRIS cloud infrastructure
Get involved
SPACE actively seeks collaborations for technology development, data generation, and data management and analysis. Contact the SPACE team at space_queries@cruk.cam.ac.uk.
Source: Cancer Grand Challenges — SPACE
Related Links
CamCEAD Collaborators
Assistant Research Professor
Research Associate
Assistant Research Professor
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