Y. Wang
University of Notre Dame,
United States
Keywords: exosome, nanocarrier, drug loading, high yield production
Summary:
Small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) are lipid-based nanoparticles with diameters between 50 nm and 150 nm, secreted by most eukaryotic cells. They are promising drug delivery vehicles due to their size, biocompatibility, low immunogenicity, and reduced toxicity in comparison with synthetic nanoscale formulations such as liposomes, dendrimers, and polymers. However, there remain fundamental challenges to the utilization of sEVs in the clinic: i) drug loading efficiency into sEVs is very limited; ii) the production of sEVs has yet to reach sufficient high throughput for further development; iii) endowing sEVs with multiple abilities for satisfactory disease targeting, tracking and combinational therapies is highly demanding. In this seminar, I will introduce a convergent bioengineered platform enabled by engineered biomimetic materials developed in The Wang Lab at the University of Notre Dame for advancing therapeutic sEVs in future medicine. This platform includes 1) a high-efficiency sEV drug loading technology with chiral graphene nanoparticles; 2) a high-yield in vitro sEV production cell culture scaffold with stimulating piezoelectric nanofibers; 3) engineered hybrid sEVs with biomimetic nanoparticles as a multifunctional targeted delivery system for cancer treatment. The platform allows loading drugs into sEVs with high efficiency, biomanufacturing sEVs in high throughput, and further engineering sEV-based drug delivery systems for various diseases with desired functions including targeted delivery, imaging, and multifunctional therapies.