Abstract
Liquid biopsy and personalized medicine stand to benefit significantly from exploiting extracellular vesicles (EVs), which serve as diagnostic snapshots of their cell of origin and therapeutic messengers. EVs, ranging from 50 nm to 1 µm, cross physiological barriers and can be engineered to enhance precision medicine applications. The EVIDENCE project addresses current limitations in EV technology by developing innovative methods for EV characterization, elucidating molecular mechanisms of EV biogenesis, and establishing CAR-T-derived EV models for cell-free immunotherapy. These advancements aim to unlock the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of EVs, paving the way for new approaches in liquid biopsy and personalized medicine.
Objectives
- Objective 1 - Innovative methods for EV characterization: Develop sensitive on-chip devices for diagnostic biomarker identification.
- Objective 2 – Biogenesis and modulation mechanisms: Explore intracellular pathways to enhance EV production and cargo optimization.
- Objective 3 – CAR-T-derived EV models: Establish protocols for cell-free immunotherapy using CAR-T-derived exosomes.
Collaborators
- Prof. Viovy (Institute Curie, Paris)
- Dr. Valentina Marassi (UniBo, Chemistry Dpt.)
Key 5 publications
- 1. Foscarini A, Siciliano G, Menon I, Primiceri E, Turco A, Romano A, Gigli G, Ferrara F, Chiriacò MS. Innovative ultrasensitive electrochemical detection for extracellular vesicles characterization. Submitted to “Biosensors and Bioelectronics”.
- 2. Foscarini A. Garzarelli G, Indirli V, Mangiullo D, Verri T, Primiceri E, Nigro A, Quattrini A, Romano A, Chiriacò MS, Gigli G, Ferrara F. Lab On chips for liquid biopsy: a flexible and customized approach. Under revision to “Biomedical Microdevices”.
- 3. Foscarini A, Romano F, Garzarelli V, Turco A, Bramanti AP, Tarantini I, Ferrara F, Visconti P, Gigli G, Chiriacò MS. A Microfluidic-Based Sensing Platform for Rapid Quality Control on Target Cells from Bioreactors. Sensors (Basel). 2024 Nov 16;24(22):7329. doi: 10.3390/s24227329.
- 4. Ferrara F., Zoupanou S., Primiceri E., Ali Z., Chiriacò M.S. Beyond liquid biopsy: Toward non-invasive assays for distanced cancer diagnostics in pandemics. Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 2022 Article number 113698
- 5. Volpe, A., Krishnan, U., Chiriacò, M.S., Ancona, A., Ferrara, F. A Smart Procedure for the Femtosecond Laser-Based Fabrication of a Polymeric Lab-on-a-Chip for Capturing Tumor Cell Engineering, 2021, 7(10), pp. 1434–1440
People
- Francesco Ferrara
- Elisabetta Primiceri
- Antonio Turco
- Viviana Vergaro
- Alessia Foscarini
- Valeria Garzarelli
- Ilaria Menon
- Giulia Siciliano
- Roberta Di Maio
- Alessandro Romano
- Angelo Quattrini
