Prof. Mei He
Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Kansas State University
Nanotechnology Innovation Center
Berkeley Postdoc 2011, Amy Herr Group
February 21, 2017 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 490 Cory Hall
Host: Liwei Lin
Most eukaryotic cells release exosomes that are membrane vesicles derived from the endolysosomal pathway with a size range of ~30-150 nm. Exosomes play important biological roles via transferring selectively enriched proteins, RNAs, and mitochondrial DNA, which presents distinctive opportunities for liquid biopsy analysis of cancers. Meanwhile, the nano-sized exosomes are highly biocompatible with intrinsic payload and exhibit much stronger antigen loading flexibility, compared to other nano-platforms such as lipid, polymers, gold, and silica material. In spite of significant therapeutic and diagnostic roles of exosomes, the study and development of the utility of exosomes are hampered by substantial technical difficulties in obtaining sufficient and pure immunogenic exosomes. Current production protocols are un-scalable, often labor-intensive and time-intensive, and in low-yield and purity (<25%). In this presentation, we introduce versatile microfluidic approaches for processing exosomes with precise control and specificity, including immune-isolation, online lysis, intravesicular marker probing, and on-demand harvesting. We also demonstrated multiplexed detection of a panel of exosomal tumor markers for liquid biopsy analysis of cancers. We foresee microfluidic technology will play game changer roles in exploring the utility of exosomes in cancer research.
bae.ksu.edu/people/faculty/heandnicks.ksu.edu
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