{"id":563831,"date":"2026-07-01T18:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/563831\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T18:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:24:10","slug":"advanced-imaging-technology-unlocks-exosome-potential-for-disease-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/563831\/","title":{"rendered":"Advanced imaging technology unlocks exosome potential for disease diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tiny particles\u00a0released by most human cells\u00a0may\u00a0be promising targets for diagnosis and treatment of an array of diseases from\u00a0cancer to Alzheimer’s, but scientists have struggled to see them and study them in detail.\u00a0Now, these particles, or exosomes,\u00a0are about to be seen in a whole new light \u2013 under a new imaging technology being developed in the lab of Wei Chuan Shih, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0new technology, supported by a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, will be able to examine exosomes one at a time, measuring their features to pinpoint which would be good drug targets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is an enormous task<\/p>\n

Inside the human body, a veritable cellular highway exists with 37 trillion cells moving about, keeping us alive, turning food into energy, repairing what needs mending and fighting off predators that try to destroy us. Most of the cells expel\u00a0tiny\u00a0exosomes,\u00a0a type of extracellular vesicle,\u00a0full of the mysterious\u00a0biological ingredients that make up the cell itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Small extracellular vesicles and exosomes are known to play important roles in a variety of basic science and applied research fields such as cancer biology, neurological disorders, regenerative medicine, and dermatology. Exosomes are also heavily pursued for various diagnostic and therapeutic applications such as liquid biopsy<\/a> and drug delivery.”\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

Wei Chuan Shih, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH<\/p>\n

\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But\u00a0there’s\u00a0a roadblock\u00a0<\/p>\n

Current methods of analyzing exosomes have many limitations such as inadequate sensitivity and specificity, insufficient resolution for single exosome profiling, demanding sample volume, and are heavily reliant on DNA amplification and sequencing techniques.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then\u00a0there’s\u00a0the multitude of steps involving purification, isolation,\u00a0concentration,\u00a0and sophisticated labeling. These barriers have hampered the advances in exosome-centric basic and applied research and technology development.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“To address such an unmet need, we are developing an Integrated\u00a0Nanophotonic Imaging\u00a0and Spectroscopy Technology (INSPECT) for scalable, multi-parametric single\u00a0exosome analysis,” said Shih.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Basically, it\u00a0uses advanced lighting at nanoscale to review the images and analyze different pieces of information at the same time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The technology is based on Shih’s\u00a0previous\u00a0work in which he\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0three well-known\u00a0nanoplasmonic\u00a0enhancing mechanisms that detects when molecules bind\u00a0to\u00a0a surface, makes fluorescent signals brighter and produces the chemical recipe of the particles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“These three techniques are highly complementary and can provide strong synergy in acquiring structural as well as compositional\/molecular information from individual exosomes,” said Shih. “While this is a single-investigator award, I look forward to collaborating with researchers interested in extracellular vesicles and exosomes, as the NIH-funded effort aims to develop\u00a0new technologies\u00a0to unlock their potential.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tiny particles\u00a0released by most human cells\u00a0may\u00a0be promising targets for diagnosis and treatment of an array of diseases from\u00a0cancer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[110,18,23274,20561,19,5963,17,172,133,82],"class_list":["post-563831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-cancer","tag-eire","tag-exosome","tag-exosomes","tag-ie","tag-imaging","tag-ireland","tag-research","tag-science","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116846124528427753","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}