Cells interact with their surrounding environment by secreting proteins which act as messengers or signals for communicating with other cells. Capturing these elusive and minute proteins, particularly those from our immune cells, and correlating them to the individual source cells can provide important insights into immune responses in patients with chronic and infectious diseases. For patients with cancer, autoimmune disorders, or infectious diseases, such insights can help accelerate the development of immunotherapies. However, studying how unhealthy or healthy cells communicate, interact and coordinate with each other in response to stimuli or pathogens, remains a challenge. To help fill the gap in correlating cell functions with their secreted proteins, a team of researchers led by Assistant Professor Cheow Lih Feng from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at CDE, as well as the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology, has invented a new technique to facilitate the studying of immune cell response at a single-cell level.