Abstract

The Next Big Small Things: Technology Driven Approaches to Bring Extracellular Vesicles into the Clinic

Sunitha Nagrath, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

Small nanoscale extracellular vesicles (EVs), known as exosomes, represent a rapidly emerging biomarker for cancer detection by liquid biopsy.  Given the tiny amount of cargo carried by these nano-sized vesicles, the development of techniques that can analyze these important carriers is an active area of research in recent times. Additionally, while high in information content, the current exosomes profiling protocols are lengthy, preventing their widespread utilization and cancer diagnostics in a timely manner.  Recent advances in technologies and approaches will be discussed to isolate and probe exosomes.  We present the isolation of tumor derived EVs and their molecular cargo for rapid cancer diagnosis and in-depth mutation profiling.