BioE Seminar Series Presents: Leyla Esfandiari

Leyla Esfandiari, Ph.D.

Assistant professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati OH

“Electrokinetically Driven Micro-pores for Minimally-Invasive Cancer Diagnosis”

Abstract: 

Early detection of cancer is essential for improved long-term survival of patients. Traditionally, invasive and costly procedures, such as surgical tissue biopsies have been used for cancer screening. However, over the past few decades, advancements in microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip approaches have been made to develop minimally invasive and miniaturized platforms to detect the circulating cancer biomarkers from biofluids. Among circulating biomarkers, small extracellular vesicles (exosomes), have drawn a great deal of attention due to their high abundance in all biofluids and their enriched and highly stable gene regulatory content including micro-RNAs. Tumor-derived exosomes have also shown potential for early diagnosis and prognosis of cancer in difficult to access tumor sites. However, because of the complex nature of biofluids and the heterogeneous physicochemical properties of exosomes, their accurate isolation and characterization raises significant challenges in clinical settings. To address these challenges, we have developed a simple, yet powerful electrokinetically driven micro-pore device capable of rapid and label-free purification of exosomes from biofluids by applying a significantly low electric field. The device is also tailored with an impedance measurement module to further characterize exosomes based on their unique dielectric properties. We have further used the micro-pores for rapid detection of sequence-specific circulating micro-RNAs with high sensitivity and accuracy.

BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Leyla Esfandiari is a tenure-track assistant professor with dual appointment in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at University of Cincinnati (UC). At UC, she is the principal investigator of the Integrative BioSensing Laboratory (IBL) with the main focus on development of nano/micro-scaled bioanalytical tools, organic bioelectronics, and microfluidics for medical and environmental applications. She has been the member of Cincinnati Cancer Center and the Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine (CuSTOM) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Her research has been supported by the National Institute of Health/ National Cancer Institute, National Science Foundation, Department of Transportation (DOT) and Office of Research at UC. 

Dr. Esfandiari completed her doctoral degree in bioengineering from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA); and earned her MSc in biomedical engineering from University of California Irvine. While at UCLA, she conducted research at the California Nano-System Institution (CNSI), the College of Medicine and the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Besides academic training, she has had three years of experience in industry. 

Dr. Esfandiari has won numerous awards including UC College of Engineering and Applied Science Distinguished Research Award, the William E. Restemeyer Teaching Excellence Award, UC Faculty Development Award, UCLA Unrestricted Fellowship, UC Irvine Kleist Fellowship, NSF Fellowship, and Boeing Scholarship.  

If interested, please email Elizabeth Chesley at e.chesley@northeastern.edu for the seminar link.