Single Circulating Vesicle Analysis for Early Cancer Detection

Join the Zhu Family Center and the DF/HCC Cancer Risk, Prevention and Early Detection (CaRPED) program on February 4, World Cancer Day 2022, for a virtual seminar entitled “Single Circulating Vesicle Analysis for Early Cancer Detection,” presented by Ralph Weissleder, MD, PhD, Center for Systems Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School.

Exosomes and other circulating extracellular vesicles (EV) in peripheral blood have emerged as potential biomarkers for cancer. There are now over 5,000 publications per year on EVs but their utility in early cancer detection remains largely unknown.

This presentation will review the background, technical capabilities of different assays and theoretical considerations to enable early cancer detection. We show that current bulk EV detection systems are ~10⁴-fold too insensitive to detect human cancers of ~1 cm³. Conversely, we predict that emerging single EV methods will allow blood based detection of cancers of < 1 mm³ in humans. Based on recent advances in single EV analysis, we present new insights in EV biology and will report results from several recent clinical studies.