Smart contact lenses for cancer diagnosis and screening

Scientists from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) have developed a contact lens that captures and detects exosomes, nano-sized vesicles found in body secretions that have the potential to be a diagnostic tool for cance.

Exosomes are formed in most cells and secreted into many body fluids, such as plasma, saliva, urine, and tear.

Due to these functions, there has been considerable interest in the use of exosomes for cancer diagnosis and prognosis/treatment predictio.

The TIBI team leveraged their expertise in contact lens biosensor design and fabrication to design ACSM-CL for capturing exosomes from tears, an optimal solution that is cleaner than blood, urine and saliv.

They also facilitated and optimized the preparation of their ACSM-CL by using alternative method.

In addition, the team introduced a method by chemically modifying the surfaces of the microchambers to activate them for binding to antibodie.

The team then optimized the procedure for binding the capture antibody to the ACSM-CL microchambers and a different (positive control) detection antibody to gold nanoparticles that could be visualized by spectroscop.

In an initial validation experiment, ACSM-CL was tested on exosomes secreted in supernatants from 10 different tissues and cancer cell line.

In a final experiment, exosomes in supernatants collected from three cell lines expressing different surface markers were tested in combination with ACSM-CL, and different marker-specific detection antibodie.

"Exosomes are a rich source of markers and biomolecules for a variety of biomedical applications," said D.

article title

A microchambers containing contact lens for the non-invasive detection of tear exosomes