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.

Affinity Selection of Extracellular Vesicles using Plastic-based Microfluidic Devices for the Management of Different Diseases

Monday, 13 December 2021 at 15:00

Add to Calendar ▼2021-12-13 15:00:002021-12-13 16:00:00Europe/LondonAffinity Selection of Extracellular Vesicles using Plastic-based Microfluidic Devices for the Management of Different DiseasesLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics 2021 in Coronado Island, CaliforniaCoronado Island, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

We have been developing tools for the diagnosis of a variety of diseases. The commonality in these tools is that they consist of microfluidic devices made from plastics via injection molding. Thus, our tools can be mass produced at low-cost to facilitate bench-to-bed side transition and point-of-care testing (PoCT). We have also been generating novel assays focused on using liquid biopsy samples that are enabled using microfluidics. In this presentation, I will talk about the evolution of our fabrication efforts of plastic-based microfluidic and nanofluidic devices as well their surface modification to make the devices biocompatible for in vitro diagnostics. One tool that we have generated is a plastic device (38 × 42 mm) that consists of 1.5M pillars, which are surface decorated with affinity agents targeting certain disease-associated extracellular vesicles (EVs). The affinity agents are covalently attached to the surface of the microfluidic device using a bifunctional linker, which consists of a coumarin moiety to allow for the photolytic release of the captured EVs using a blue-light LED to minimize photodamage to the EVs’ molecular cargo. We have also developed a high-throughput nano-Coulter counter (nCC) made from a plastic via injection molding for the counting of captured EVs from clinical samples to allow their enumeration. The nCC consists of multiple pores that are ~350 nm to allow for high throughput counting with exquisite LODs (500 EVs/mL). In this presentation, I will discuss the utility of these microfluidic and nanofluidic devices in several diseases, for example, using EVs as a source of mRNAs for molecular sub-typing of breast cancer patients. EVs were affinity selected from breast-cancer patients’ plasma by searching for both epithelial and mesenchymal expressing EVs to allow for highly efficient sub-typing using the PAM50 gene panel. In an addition, the microfluidic and nanofluidic devices were integrated into a single platform (modular-based system) for PoCT to screen for early stage ovarian cancer. Affinity probes were used to target EVs specifically generated from tumor cells that signal early-stage ovarian cancer disease with the nCC used for enumerating the number of EVs captured. Finally, the modular system was used for the detection of COVID-19 at the PoC by affinity selecting SARS-CoV-2 viral particles. The integrated system could process saliva samples to search for the viral particles and count them in <20 min.

Add to Calendar ▼2021-12-13 00:00:002021-12-15 00:00:00Europe/LondonLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics 2021Lab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics 2021 in Coronado Island, CaliforniaCoronado Island, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Corporate Sponsors

	Lab-on-a-Chip & Microfluidics World Congress 2023 Location: Laguna Hills, California Date: 28/11/2023 - 30/11/2023

	Lab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics Asia 2023 Location: Tokyo, Japan Date: 05/10/2023 - 06/10/2023

	Organoids and Organ-on-a-Chip Asia 2023 Location: Tokyo, Japan Date: 05/10/2023 - 06/10/2023