Microfluidic chips to study cell to cell communication and translational research towards precision medicine
NaMeS students are invited to IPC PAS Seminar within CREATE Lectures "Innovation source" delivered by:
Prof. Yoon-Kyoung Cho
Center for Soft and Living Matter
Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)
Republic of Korea
Thursday, 31st October, 2019, 10.00
Assembly hall of the IPC PAS
Abstract
In the tumor microenvironment, various tumor-associated cells such as vascular, fibroblast, and immune cells interact with tumor cells to promote the development of cancer cells, indicating the importance of understanding the communication between these different cell types in developing cancer therapeutics. In this presentation we will discuss our recent studies on extracellular vesicles (EVs)-based cancer diagnostics inspired by widespread recognition that EVs may be pivotal in intercellular communication. We examine clinical samples by analyzing multiple kinds of proteins and RNA of EVs from cancer patient’s plasma or urine samples and show that the EVs could be a potentially useful biomarker in cancer diagnostics. Next, we introduce the microfluidic chip equipped with biologically interfaced platelet membrane-cloaked surface (PLT-Chip), which could specifically capture EVs from multiple types of cancer cell lines than the normal cell-derived EVs and clearly distinguish the plasma of cancer patients from that of normal healthy controls. We believe that this revolutionary method can contribute to accelerate the acceptance of CTC or EV-based cancer diagnostics as a standard practice in clinical settings. Based on the presented academic research, the key technologies including lab-on-a-disc systems equipped with the fluid-assisted separation technology (FAST) are now translated into liquid biopsy products commercialized by two start-up companies. In this talk, the personal experience of translational research both at industry (Samsung) and academia (UNIST) will be discussed. Taken all together, we believe understanding the critical role of cell-to-cell communication in cancer progression will provide insights critical to not only the development of improved cancer therapeutics (societal impact) but to basic science of cell biology (basic science).
