Exosome-based Precision Medicine

Despite the immense advances in oncology, not all patients respond to treatment and cancer cells may develop resistant mechanisms, leading to relapse and disseminated incurable disease.

There is thus still a desperate need for improved cancer therapies as well as sensitive tools to detect early cancers and relapses.

Exosomes (Exo) have the potential to offer a unique platform as a new class of therapeutics as well as a new sensitive diagnostic marker in form of liquid biopsy. Exo are nanometer sized extracellular vesicles that are secreted by all cells and found in all body fluids.

Given that their content, including proteins and nucleic acids, is protected by a lipid membrane and reflects that of the source cell, Exo can function as a fingerprint of the patient’s cancer with the ability to reflect the current status of the tumor.

In addition, Exo can be engineered to display targeting and therapeutic moieties and can shuttle their cargo over biological barriers. Exo can thus act as natural vectors and offers a unique platform for tailored tumor targeting.

This program aims to investigate the potential of using Exo in precision medicine for improved cancer diagnostics and tailored targeted therapies.

The first part of this project is to use bioengineered Exo to display antibodies against tumors and to deliver antitumor cargo, whereas the second part involves affinity capture of tumor Exo (tExo) as a liquid biopsy focusing on nucleic acid-based diagnostics.