# Isolation and Assessment of Blood-Circulating Cancer Exosomes with LSS and SERS Lab on a Chip Optical Spectroscopic Instrument

> **NIH NIH R01** · BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER · 2022 · $637,283

## Abstract

Project Summary
Shed into the peripheral circulation from a primary tumor, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are limited by
their extremely sparse concentrations in blood. In contrast, molecular markers secreted by tumor cells
into the vasculature are present in much higher concentrations and could provide important insight on
cancer cell biology and predictive biomarkers for early detection, progression and metastasis. These
markers, including soluble proteins, cell-free DNA (cfDNA), and circulating microvesicles and exosomes
have been shown to contain valuable information on the molecular state of often difficult to access tumor
sites. Unfortunately, the source of the soluble proteins found in blood cannot be determined, resulting in
the high false-positive rates, while significantly more specific cfDNA often reflect the dying or apoptotic
cells. Exosomes, small membrane vesicles of endocytic origin, show the greatest potential as an easily
accessible biomarker for early cancer detection and monitoring due to their unique properties, including
their stability in biological fluids and their potential to be efficiently isolated. Cancer cells release more
exosomes than normal cells and exosomes secreted from tumor cells can promote tumor progression,
survival, invasion and angiogenesis.
 In this application we propose to develop an optical spectroscopic technique, which combines
light scattering spectroscopy (LSS) and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for highly
rigorous isolation and assessment of blood-circulating cancer exosomes for early cancer detection in a
rapid and inexpensive lab-on-a-chip system. As it is shown in this application, not only LSS can separate
exosomes from microvesicles, the capability not available at the moment, but it also can differentiate
various types of exosomes originated in different organs of the digestive tract, while SERS is capable of
differentiating exosomes secreted by cancerous and normal cells of the same organ.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10328506
- **Project number:** 5R01CA218382-05
- **Recipient organization:** BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Lev T Perelman
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $637,283
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-02-01 → 2024-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10328506

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10328506, Isolation and Assessment of Blood-Circulating Cancer Exosomes with LSS and SERS Lab on a Chip Optical Spectroscopic Instrument (5R01CA218382-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10328506. Licensed CC0.

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