Grant: Idea to Innovation

This NSERC Idea to Innovation (I2I) grant is funding the development of a microfluidic platform technology that directly isolates and purifies extracellular vesicles (EVs) from bodily fluids, like whole blood and urine. This microfluidic approach results in EV concentrations that are several times higher than the concentrations achievable using the current gold-standard ultracentrifugation technique. Our approach combines the precision of microfluidics with the selective partitioning capability of aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) fluids, to isolate and purify EVs, and importantly, overcome the critical limitations of ultracentrifugation--namely, EV concentrations that are too low for applications, co-isolation of impurities, and EV damage. The key innovations of our technology are the marriage of microfluidics and an in-house optimized ATPS that exploits thermodynamic energy balances to gently shuttle EVs to one fluid phase, while moving all other bodily fluid components to a different fluid phase, and the addition of a secondary approach to select for specific EV subpopulations. The specific objectives in this project are to 1) optimize an ATPS for specific subpopulations of EVs, and 2) integrate the ATPS into a microfluidic format for maximum EV partitioning.A Vancouver-based biotechnology company is already attracted to this project because of the project's potential impact in the area of biomedicine. The completion of this project will lead us to the position of being able to license the technology to potential commercial partners, and realize a new EV isolation and purification tool that has important utility in EV research, and makes liquid biopsies widely usable in cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring applications.