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SELECTBIO Conferences Extracellular Vesicles 2022: Technologies Driving Biological Investigations

Yazhen Zhu's Biography



Yazhen Zhu, Assistant Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. Yazhen Zhu is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Since she joined liquid biopsy program in UCLA in 2017, she has been working to develop liquid biopsy-based technologies for implementation of non-invasive diagnosis in the fields of cancer and maternal-fetal medicine. Her research efforts are currently supported by NIH. Before joining UCLA, Dr. Zhu was a clinical pathologist who had accumulated extensive hands-on experience in the fields of surgical and molecular pathology. She was also in charge of a molecular diagnostic laboratory, where she developed and validated a collection of laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) for cancer diagnosis.

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Click Chemistry-Mediated Surface Protein Assay for Quantifying Subpopulations of Hepatocellular Carcinoma-Associated Extracellular Vesicles

Wednesday, 14 December 2022 at 15:00

Add to Calendar ▼2022-12-14 15:00:002022-12-14 16:00:00Europe/LondonClick Chemistry-Mediated Surface Protein Assay for Quantifying Subpopulations of Hepatocellular Carcinoma-Associated Extracellular VesiclesExtracellular Vesicles 2022: Technologies Driving Biological Investigations in Long Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a heterogeneous group of phospholipid bilayer-enclosed particles that are released by all types of cells, and even more so by tumor cells. It is well known that tumor-associated EVs are present in circulation at a relatively early stage of disease. Since the surface proteins of tumor-associated EVs mirror those of the parental tumor cells, performing surface protein analysis on tumor-associated EVs offers a systemic and repeatable assessment of tumor cells that can offer substantial diagnostic value for early-stage diseases. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) predominantly occurs in patients with underlying cirrhosis, and is the fourth most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Current clinical surveillance guidelines, which include biannual liver ultrasonography with or without serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), exhibit low sensitivity to detect early-stage HCC, limiting delivery of curative-intent treatments. Therefore, exploiting the diagnostic potential of HCC EVs’ surface protein signatures as a novel biomarker for detecting early-stage HCC holds great promise to augment current HCC diagnostic modalities. We demonstrated the feasibility of HCC EV Surface Protein Assay (SPA) for detecting subpopulations of HCC EVs by coupling two platform technologies: Click Chemistry-mediated EV Click Beads for isolation and enrichment of HCC EVs, and real-time immuno-PCR for HCC EV quantification. The resultant HCC EV Surface Protein Scores exhibit great diagnostic potential for early detection of HCC.


Add to Calendar ▼2022-12-12 00:00:002022-12-14 00:00:00Europe/LondonExtracellular Vesicles 2022: Technologies Driving Biological InvestigationsExtracellular Vesicles 2022: Technologies Driving Biological Investigations in Long Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com