Abstract

Nanotechnologies for Isolating and Characterizing Extracellular Nanocarriers of Biomarkers

Hsueh-Chia Chang, Bayer Professor of Engineering / Director, University of Notre Dame

We review a suite of nanotechnologies from our lab for high-throughput and scalable purification, enrichment and characterization of extracellular vesicles. The technologies are designed for medical diagnostics and biomarker discovery with physiological samples and for large-volume manufacturing of therapeutic exosomes. The relevant nanocarriers are exosomes, lipoproteins or protein-RNA complexes that carry potential protein and nucleic acid biomarkers for cancer, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and even mental diseases.  The technologies include size-based ultrafiltration membranes with conic nanopores to reduce protein fouling, bipolar membranes that can split water and actuate on-chip pH gradient to allow rapid and continuous isoelectric separation of nanocarriers by charge, superparamagnetic traps of immuno-nanobeads for rapid affinity and activity assay of specific nanocarriers, electrokinetic nanoporous microsensors that can profile surface proteins of nanocarriers, solid-state nanopore sensor for profiling microRNA cargoes etc.