BME Seminar Series: Randy Carney, Ph.D.

Nanoplasmonics analysis of extracellular vesicles for cancer diagnostics

Abstract: Cancer pathology is dramatically mediated by a number of key proteins, lipids, small molecules and nucleic acids trafficked in exosomes and related nanoscale extracellular vesicles (EVs). Sensitive and specific detection of the cell-specific biomaterials recruited and packaged in EVs has the potential to improve identification and monitoring of cancer, particularly for those types lacking early screening. Yet current methods for phenotyping EVs released into blood circulation cannot easily nor rapidly distinguish tumor-associated from non-tumor associated particles. This talk introduces our lab’s Raman spectroscopy platforms to molecularly characterize EVs and quantitatively assess chemical composition at single particle resolution. We show that tumor-released EVs can be readily distinguished from healthy ones using wholly label-free analysis. By extending to surface-enhanced Raman scattering via nanoscale metal substrates and particles, we can achieve rapid, sensitive detection of tumor EVs in patient biofluids, which has recently opened up new insights to the importance of the EVs’ glycocalyx coating for improved diagnostic specificity.

Bio: Randy Carney is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the UC Davis. He received his bachelor's of science in chemistry in 2008 from University of Arkansas, a master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2010) and from EPFL in Switzerland (2013) focused on the impact of nanoscale surface structure in the organic ligand coating of metal nanoparticles on cell penetration. He continued his studies as a postdoctoral fellow at UC Davis in the fields of soft nanomaterials, including exosomes and related extracellular vesicles. His group engineers platforms to examine the use of EVs as next-generation cancer biomarkers and therapeutics.