NSF-GACR: An Optical Biosensing Platform for Simultaneous Detection and Quantification of Exosomes and Exosomal Cargo Biomarkers

Biosensors have proven extremely valuable in biomedical research, healthcare and pharmaceutics and are envisioned to become an integral part of modern medical diagnostics. Recently, circulating exosomes (tiny sac-like structures that were formed inside cells and contain some of the cell's proteins, DNA, and RNA) have emerged as promising biomarkers for medical diagnosis because they contain information about their cells of origin.

Despite exosomes having been reported to be present in all major body fluids, effective detection and molecular analysis of exosomes remains particularly challenging due to the high variability in exosome subpopulations, small amounts of cargo molecules, and low recovery and reproducibility of exosome purification. This international collaborative project between Cornell University (Ithaca) and the Institute of Photonics and Electronics, Prague (IPE) will address these challenges by developing a new biosensing methodology that enables simultaneous detection and quantification of exosomes and exosomal cargo molecules to take full advantage of the richness of information contained in exosomes.

Simultaneous identification and quantification of exosomes and exosomal cargo biomarkers have broader applications from biomedical diagnosis to the characterization of new drug delivery carriers based on exosomes. This project provides training opportunities for the next generation workforce in STEM fields in the US and the Czech Republic. Graduate and undergraduate students from underrepresented groups will receive training in this highly interdisciplinary research project.

Graduate students will visit the collaborative labs each summer to foster the collaboration and gain experience on conducting research in a diverse environment.

The goal of this project is to bring together two research institutions, one located in the US and the other in the Czech Republic, to develop a new biosensing methodology that enables simultaneous detection and quantification of exosomes and exosomal cargo molecules in order to take full advantage of the richness of information contained in exosomes. The biosensing platform will be based on optically excited surface plasmons that enable rapid and sensitive detection of biomolecules and investigation of biomolecular interactions in real time without the need for labeling.

The specific objectives of the project are: (1) to develop a novel method for the capture, quantification, and profiling of selected exosomes based on a plasmonic biosensor; (2) to develop methods for controlled lysis of exosomes captured in the plasmonic biosensor and for the ultrasensitive detection of miRNA (microRNAs) and protein cargo molecules released from the lysed exosomes; and (3) to integrate these methods into a single biosensing platform for selective capture and profiling of exosomes and detection of multiple exosomal cargo miRNAs and proteins. The project will advance fundamental knowledge of utilizing exosomes as emerging biomarkers and nanoscience and nanotechnology in biosensing.

The results of this work will make significant impacts not only in the field of biosensing but also in the fields of medical diagnosis, cell biology, biomaterials, surface chemistry and plasmonics.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.