Steve Soper's Biography

Steve Soper, Foundation Distinguished Professor, Director, Center of BioModular Multi-scale System for Precision Medicine, The University of Kansas

Prof. Soper (since 2016) is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kansas. At KUMC, Prof. Soper holds an adjunct appointment in the Cancer Biology Department and is a member of the KU Cancer Center. He also holds an appointment at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Ulsan, South Korea, where he is a World Class University Professor.

As a result of his efforts, Prof. Soper has secured extramural funding totaling >$125M, has published over 245 peer-reviewed manuscripts (h index = 70; >17,000 citations); 31 book chapters and 71 peer-reviewed conference proceeding papers, and is the author of 12 patents. He is also the founder of a startup company, BioFluidica, which is marketing devices for the isolation and enumeration of liquid biopsy markers. Soper recently founded a second company, Sunflower Genomics, which is seeking to market a new DNA/RNA single-molecule sequencing platform. His list of awards includes Ralph Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry, Chemical Instrumentation by the American Chemical Society, the Benedetti-Pichler Award for Microchemistry, Fellow of the AAAS, Fellow of Applied Spectroscopy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, R&D 100 Award, Distinguished Masters Award at LSU and Outstanding Scientist/Engineer in the state of Louisiana in 2001. Finally, Prof. Soper has granted 50 PhDs and 7 MS degrees to students under his mentorship. He currently heads a group of 15 researchers.

His major discoveries include: (1) Technology for the detection of liquid biopsy markers that can manage a variety of diseases using a simple blood test (test has been demonstrated in multiple myeloma, pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, pancreatic, breast, colorectal, prostate, and ovarian cancers); (2) new hardware and assay for the point-of-care diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke; (3) single-molecule DNA and RNA sequencing nanotechnology; and (4) currently working on a home-test for COVID-19 infections (handheld instrument and the associated assay.

Plastic-based Nanofluidic Sensor for the Detection of Rare Nucleic Acids and Determining Their Sequence Variations from Liquid Biopsy Markers

Tuesday, 29 September 2020 at 14:30

Add to Calendar ▼2020-09-29 14:30:002020-09-29 15:30:00Europe/LondonPlastic-based Nanofluidic Sensor for the Detection of Rare Nucleic Acids and Determining Their Sequence Variations from Liquid Biopsy MarkersLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics 2020 in Virtual ConferenceVirtual ConferenceSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Liquid biopsy markers (circulating tumor cells, CTCs; extracellular vesicles, EVs; and cell free DNA, cfDNA) are becoming extremely popular to manage a variety of cancer-related diseases due to the minimally invasive nature of their acquisition. However, the challenge with liquid biopsy markers is their rarity; for example, it is not uncommon to secure 1-100 CTCs per mL of whole blood supplying about 6-600 pg of genomic DNA. Because platforms like next generation sequencing require >30 ng of input DNA, significant amounts of amplification of the input are required that can generate a biased representation of the genome. To mitigate this issue, we have produced a mixed-scale nanofluidic sensor featuring a baffle area, high surface area pillar arrays, and nanometer flight tubes. The pixel arrays can perform solid-phase ligase detection reactions (spLDRs) to score the presence of DNA mutations found in a diseased patient even when the mass of the marker is low (<1 ng), but does not require PCR amplification for the analysis. The spLDR can also expression profile mRNAs following reverse transcription. Successfully formed spLDR products are identified using a molecular-dependent time-of-flight (TOF) through a polymer nanofluidic channel flanked by two in-plane nanopores. Simulations (COMSOL) were used to guide the design and fabrication of the nanofluidic sensor to determine the loading efficiency and transport patterns of spLDR products from the pillar array into the flight tubes by evaluating operational parameters when using either hydrodynamic or electrokinetic flow. The nanofluidic sensor was fabricated from a Si master patterned using a combination of focused ion beam (FIB) milling and photolithography with inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching. The Si master was used to produce resin stamps that were then used to transfer the relevant structures to a plastic via thermal nanoimprint lithography (NIL). The operational features of the device will be presented as well as detecting point mutations in KRAS genes from CTCs’ genomic DNA as well as mRNA expression profiling.

Add to Calendar ▼2020-09-28 00:00:002020-09-30 00:00:00Europe/LondonLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics 2020Lab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics 2020 in Virtual ConferenceVirtual ConferenceSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Corporate Sponsors

	Emerging Technologies & Paradigms for In Vitro Dx Europe 2024 Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands Date: 18/03/2024 - 19/03/2024

	Innovations in Microfluidics 2024: Rapid Prototyping, 3D-Printing Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan Date: 06/05/2024 - 07/05/2024

	Innovations in Microfluidics & 3D-Printing Europe 2024 Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands Date: 25/03/2024 - 26/03/2024