What is STARLING?
STARLING is a computer program that helps scientists make sense of spatial single-cell data: information about where individual cells are located and what molecules they contain.
Imagine looking at a detailed city map where every house is a cell, and you also know what's inside each house. STARLING helps group similar "houses" together into neighborhoods, but it also accounts for mistakes in the map, like blurry photos or mislabelled streets.
Why Use STARLING?
- Cleaner results – It detects and corrects for errors caused by cell segmentation mistakes.
- Better grouping – Finds clusters of cells that actually make sense biologically.
- Works with real-world data – Can handle noisy or imperfect experimental data.
Sample Pipeline
- Input: Data about each cell’s location and molecular markers.
- Probabilistic modeling: Uses statistics to guess which measurements are real and which might be errors.
- Clustering: Groups cells into meaningful types or "neighborhoods."
- Output: A cleaned-up map of cells that better reflects reality.
Read the Papers
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