Electrochemical Profiling of Extracellular Vesicles (EP4EVs)

细胞外囊泡 (EP4EV) 的电化学分析

• 批准号: EP/Y002458/1
• 负责人: Anitha Devadoss
• 金额: $ 21.15万
• 依托单位: Heriot-Watt University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY002458%2F1
• 关键词: Electrochemical; Profiling; Extracellular; Vesicles; EP4EVs

Beating Cancer is all about early detection, which enables faster access to better treatment to improve long-term survival rates. Around 55,000 women and 370 men are diagnosed with breast cancer (BC) every year in the UK. Although most cancer cases are diagnosed at an early stage, a "two-week wait" is the most common route to diagnosing cancer in UK that is followed by a "31-day wait" for a decision to treat. The UK spends at least £7,247 per case and a total of £243 million per year for BC diagnosis/treatment. Thus, developing highly sensitive and cost-effective diagnostic and monitoring systems using small sample volumes for rapid cancer diagnostics and prognostics (reducing diagnosis/treatment times) is a key UK-wide strategic priority in personalised medicine. The standard of care for locally advanced or aggressive BC is neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) followed by breast surgery. Currently, the pre-surgical assessment of the efficacy of NACT is based on medical imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or computerized tomography scan (CT), however, these imaging techniques suffer from a reduced sensitivity in monitoring treatment response and cannot be used for the prediction of disease progression.This project aims at developing electrochemical profiling as a liquid-biopsy test (simple blood test) to access the efficacy of NACT through detecting the BC specific surface proteins on the tumour derived extracellular vesicles (tdEVs) released from the BC cells. This involves the development of electrochemical assays through integration of surface chemistries with specific antibodies to detect clinically relevant tdEVs surface proteins at clinically relevant concentrations. Here, we propose to demonstrate a feasibility study that involves the testing of these electrochemical assays for the real-time electrochemical profiling of tdEVs surface proteins in blood samples obtained from the BC patients collected at different stages of NACT. This multidisciplinary project will be delivered through strategic partnership with our international partner at University of Genova (expertise - internal medicine), UK co-Investigators at University of Edinburgh (cancer oncologist) and Swansea University (extracellular vesicles biologist) and Industrial partners in UK (sensor manufacturer). The success of this project will assist the expansion of rapid and high throughput liquid-biopsy based cancer diagnostics and prognostics and thus, would reduce the diagnosis/treatment time and cost, which will directly impact the healthcare sector in UK and worldwide.

战胜癌症的关键在于早期发现，从而能够更快地获得更好的治疗，从而提高长期生存率。英国每年约有 55,000 名女性和 370 名男性被诊断患有乳腺癌 (BC)。尽管大多数癌症病例都是在早期诊断出来的，但在英国，“两周等待”是诊断癌症的最常见途径，随后“等待 31 天”才能做出治疗决定。英国每年在 BC 诊断/治疗上花费至少 7,247 英镑，每年总计 2.43 亿英镑。因此，使用小样本量开发高度灵敏且具有成本效益的诊断和监测系统，以进行快速癌症诊断和预后（减少诊断/治疗时间）是英国范围内个性化医疗的关键战略重点。局部晚期或侵袭性 BC 的护理标准是新辅助化疗 (NACT)，然后进行乳房手术。目前，NACT疗效的术前评估基于医学成像技术，例如磁共振成像（MRI）或计算机断层扫描（CT），然而，这些成像技术在监测治疗反应方面的灵敏度较低，不能用于预测疾病进展。该项目旨在开发电化学分析作为液体活检测试（简单的血液测试），以获取 NACT 通过检测 BC 细胞释放的肿瘤来源的细胞外囊泡 (tdEV) 上的 BC 特异性表面蛋白来验证 NACT 的功效。这涉及通过将表面化学与特异性抗体相结合来开发电化学测定，以检测临床相关浓度的临床相关 tdEV 表面蛋白。在这里，我们建议展示一项可行性研究，其中涉及测试这些电化学测定，以对从 NACT 不同阶段收集的 BC 患者获得的血液样本中的 tdEV 表面蛋白进行实时电化学分析。该多学科项目将通过与我们在热那亚大学（专业知识 - 内科）的国际合作伙伴、爱丁堡大学（癌症肿瘤学家）和斯旺西大学（细胞外囊泡生物学家）的英国联合研究人员以及英国的工业合作伙伴（传感器制造商）的战略合作伙伴关系来交付。该项目的成功将有助于扩展基于快速和高通量液体活检的癌症诊断和预后，从而减少诊断/治疗时间和成本，这将直接影响英国和全球的医疗保健部门。