Bruker to launch Beacon Discovery™ at AACR 2025, expanding access to live single-cell functional analysis

Bruker Corporation today announced the launch of the Beacon Discovery^™ Optofluidic System at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2025. This new Beacon benchtop system offers an accessible entry point into live single-cell functional analysis.

Building on Bruker’s proprietary Opto-Electrical Positioning (OEP) technology and scalable OptoSelect^™ microfluidic chips, Beacon Discovery complements the floor-standing premium Beacon^® platforms. All Beacon systems precisely isolate, control, and analyze single cells within Nanopens using machine learning-driven automation and OEP. Researchers can conduct multi-parameter and temporal functional analysis over days or weeks, combining live-cell imaging with sequential assays. Cells can then be recovered for downstream transcriptomic and genomic analysis, enabling a unique linkage between functional insights and sequencing data from the same cell.

While the existing higher-throughput Beacon platforms focus on fully automated therapeutic antibody discovery and cell line development for pharma and CROs, the new single-chip Beacon Discovery prioritizes ease of use and flexibility with an intuitive user interface and customizable workflows for translational research in academic and biotech laboratories.
With a substantially reduced cost of ownership and lower running costs, Beacon Discovery lowers the barrier to entry for researchers and core labs exploring immuno-oncology, infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders, and immune profiling for regenerative medicine, antibody and T Cell Receptor (TCR) discovery, and cell therapy development.

One of the Beacon Discovery early-access users, Dr. Joseph Zenga, MD, Associate Professor and Division Chief at the Medical College of Wisconsin, highlighted the platform’s impact: "Having used the Beacon platform for years, we have seen firsthand how it transforms TCR discovery for cancer immunotherapy. Its automated workflows and novel multi-parameter temporal analysis allow precise characterization of tumor antigen-specific T cells, accelerating the identification of potent therapeutic candidates from patient tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). With the new Beacon Discovery, this powerful technology is now within reach for many more individual and core labs in academia and industry."

Beacon Discovery is redefining live single-cell functional analysis, as demonstrated by numerous Beacon based publications in leading journals,"

Vikram Devgan, PhD, Vice President of Global Marketing and Product Management, Bruker Cellular Analysis

"With a much lower entry price and enhanced ease of use, we are breaking down barriers and setting new standards in single-cell functional characterization. This platform enables deep biological insights across a broad range of applications, empowering R&D and translational researchers in pharma, biotech, and academia to accelerate novel B and T cell therapeutic development and biomarker research."

The platform is now open for pre-orders, with commercial shipments expected later in 2025. For an early preview of how this cutting-edge platform may reveal novel insights of your biology, Bruker is launching a Technology Access Program (TAP), allowing Confidentialresearchers to submit samples to Bruker Cellular Analysis for evaluation on the Beacon Discovery system.

Join us at AACR 2025, Booth #803, to experience Beacon Discovery firsthand. Don’t miss our workshop, "Introducing Beacon Discovery: Bringing Live Single-Cell Multi-Parameter Functional Analysis to Every Lab," on April 27^th at 3:30 PM CST.