Y. Peng Loh,
Chief and Senior Investigator, Section on Cellular Neurobiology,
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Dr. Y. Peng Loh is the Chief, and Senior Investigator in the Section on Cellular Neurobiology, NICHD, NIH, USA. She received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Molecular Biology and did postdoctoral studies at NIH in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience. Her laboratory research over the last 8 years focuses on two areas: First, the new role of carboxypeptidase E (CPE, now also named NF-a1) as a trophic factor in neuroprotection, depression and stem cell differentiation. Secondly, she investigates the important roles discovered in her laboratory, of CPE and a splice variant of the CPE gene (CPE-?N) in tumor growth, survival and metastasis. CPE/CPE-?N is being developed as a tumor tissue biomarker for predicting future recurrence/metastasis, especially in patients with early stage cancers of various types, as well as for blood-based (circulating exosome) screening of high risk patients for early detection of cancer. She has published more than 250 papers in reputable journals and book chapters and is on the editorial board of several journals. She has lectured world-wide, and received many prestigious awards including the FASEB Excellence in Science Award, NIH Director’s awards for Science and the Anita Roberts Distinguished Woman Scientist Award.
Carboxypeptidase E: A Cancer Biomarker in Circulating Exosomes
Tuesday, 20 June 2017 at 14:30
Add to Calendar ▼2017-06-19 00:00:002017-06-19 01:00:00Europe/LondonTitle to be ConfirmedExosomes and Liquid Biopsies Asia 2017 in Taipei, TaiwanTaipei, TaiwanSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
Tumor recurrence and metastasis are the major causes of death in cancer patients. Biomarkers that can predict tumor recurrence in cancer patients who are in the early pathology stage and able to receive curative resection will greatly improve survival. To facilitate early cancer diagnosis and as a companion diagnostic to follow the efficacy of the therapy, such biomarkers should be detected not only in resected tumors, but also in serum to provide a non-invasive assay. Accumulating evidence suggest that carboxypeptidase E (CPE), could serve as a biomarker for predicting recurrence and survival in certain cancers, although lots remains to be studied to check on its validity and reproducibility. Overexpression of carboxypeptidase E (CPE) mRNA is common in many different human cancer types including metastatic cervical cancer, renal (clear cell) carcinoma, Ewing sarcoma, glioblastoma and various types of astrocytomas and oligodendrogliomas [1]. Indeed, CPE mRNA overexpression in resected tumors was significantly correlated with poor prognosis in early-stage HCC [2] and cervical [3] cancer. Since tumor cells release exosomes which contain mRNAs and proteins that mirror their parent tumor cells, and are readily accessible in nearly all biological fluids, we have developed a method to measure CPE mRNA in exosomes. CPE mRNA was elevated in exosomes isolated from cell culture media of liver, prostate, ovarian, glioblastoma and colorectal cancer cell lines with high compared to low metastatic potential. There was no correlation between the size and numbers of secreted exosomes and the metastatic potential of the cancer cells. Our preliminary studies indicate that CPE mRNA is present and elevated in serum-derived exosomes of many of the patients with different types of cancers including cervical, ovarian and breast cancer, compared to normal controls. Thus circulating exosomal CPE mRNA is a potentially useful biomarker for diagnosis of cancer and early detection of recurrence post-surgery, although much more work lies ahead to develop this as a valid test.
Add to Calendar ▼2017-06-19 00:00:002017-06-20 00:00:00Europe/LondonExosomes and Liquid Biopsies Asia 2017Exosomes and Liquid Biopsies Asia 2017 in Taipei, TaiwanTaipei, TaiwanSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
Add to Calendar ▼2017-06-19 00:00:002017-06-19 01:00:00Europe/LondonTitle to be ConfirmedExosomes and Liquid Biopsies Asia 2017 in Taipei, TaiwanTaipei, TaiwanSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
