Yun Wu

Professor and Chair
University at Buffalo
Department of Biomedical Engineering

New exosome-based liquid biopsy assays for lung cancer screening, early detection, and treatment response monitoring

Abstract

Current cancer screening and diagnostic tests, such as low dose computed tomography (LDCT) for lung cancer and colonoscopy for colorectal cancer, are challenged by low sensitivity, high false positive rate, limited tumor information, uncomfortable or invasive procedures and high cost. Liquid biopsy detects circulating biomarkers, allows sequential monitoring of cancer development, complements medical imaging and risk factor data, provides a more comprehensive portrait of cancer, and thus it has shown great promise in cancer screening and diagnosis. Exosomes, nano-sized vesicles secreted by cells have emerged as promising cancer biomarkers for liquid biopsy. They have shown high sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing many cancers. Unfortunately, current detection technologies, such as ELISA, LC-MS, qRT-PCR, microarray and next generation sequencing are not able to effectively detect tumor-derived exosomes and are tedious, expensive and time consuming, which limits their clinical utilities as screening and diagnostic tests. To overcome these challenges, we have developed novel, sensitive, fast and user-friendly liquid biopsy assays to capture and characterize tumor-derived exosomal biomarkers for cancer screening, early detection and treatment response monitoring. In this talk, I will introduce the tethered cationic lipoplex nanoparticles (tCLN) assay, the immuno cationic lipoplex nanoparticles (iCLN) assay, and the exosome protein-microRNA one stop (Exo-PROS) assay. Using lung cancer as the disease model, we have demonstrated the potential clinical utilities of our exosome-based liquid biopsy assays in detecting lung cancer and predicting response to immune checkpoint inhibitor.

Bio

Dr. Yun Wu is a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at University at Buffalo. She received her BS in Polymer Materials and Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2000, and her Ph.D. from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Ohio State University in 2009

Dr. Wu’s research focuses on the development of innovative in vitro diagnostic assays for cancer screening, early detection and prognosis and the development of multifunctional nanotherapeutics for cancer imaging and therapy. She has published 4 book chapters and >65 peer-reviewed papers in top rated journals, such as ACS Nano, Cancer Communications, Small, ACS Sensors and Biomaterials. Dr. Wu’s research has been supported by National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Science Foundation, Food and Drug Administration, Cancer Research Institute and SUNY.

Dr. Wu received Biomedical Engineering Innovation and Career Development Award from Biomedical Engineering Society in 2013, SEAS Early Career Researcher of the Year Award in 2016, SEAS Early Career Teacher of the Year Award in 2018, SEAS Senior Researcher of the Year Award in 2021, and UB Exceptional Scholar - Sustained Achievement Award in 2023.