Health technologies continue to evolve. More accurate diagnostic methods that help physicians make critical decisions faster, yet are less invasive and cheaper for patients, are highly desirable. Indeed, this is the goal for Associate Professor Shao Huilin, who is harnessing her knowledge of physics and engineering to develop rapid, noninvasive diagnostic tools for a range of diseases; from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease to COVID-19.
Assoc Prof Shao is behind the world’s first blood test to accurately measure the effectiveness of cancer therapy within 24 hours of the start of treatment. Conventional procedures such as tumour imaging, and tissue biopsies are invasive, and involve a lengthy wait for results. Existing pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic approaches measure the total drug concentration in blood, which does not reflect drug efficacy in tumours.
Termed ‘Extracellular vesicle monitoring of small-molecule chemical occupancy and protein expression (ExoSCOPE)’, the technology measures drug occupancy and protein composition in extracellular vesicles that circulate in the blood after being secreted from a solid tumour. Drug occupancy in the vesicles was correlated to drug effectiveness in solid tumours.
The test is based on a platform that employs spatial engineering of all reactions, with biorthogonal amplification of probes, and their enzyme-based optical labelling, occurring within arrays of plasmonic nano-ring resonators. This design enables drug occupancy of extracellular vesicles to be measured in real time from patient blood samples, with only a tiny amount of blood required for analysis. Each test takes less than one hour to complete, allowing physicians to continually adjust the treatment plan according to the patient’s response, and thereby improve patient prognosis.
Her research has also led to the development of a device to detect protein biomarkers of early stage Alzheimer’s disease. This blood test-based diagnostic kit called Apex, is currently being developed for clinical use.
More recently, Assoc Prof Shao’s team worked to develop a diagnostic test for COVID-19, that was much faster than conventional polymerase chain reaction-based tests, yet was just as accurate.
Ultimately, Assoc Prof Shao hopes her research can help make personalised medicine a reality, with early disease detection methods, and improved disease monitoring technologies.
Collaborative grant amounting to $9.88 million to find new diagnostic and treatment for Glioblastoma, a type of deadly brain tumour
This monitor can be easily integrated into existing fitness trackers to measure a user’s sweat, allowing users to enjoy round-the-clock, personalised, and non-invasive assessment of their well-being
The enVision device developed is a versatile platform that can conduct specific and sensitive screening and detection for a range of diseases, from infectious diseases and high-prevalence infections, to various types of cancers and genetic diseases
Zhao, H., Pan, S., Natalia, A., Wu, X., Ong, C. A. J., Teo, M. C., ... & Shao, H. (2022). A hydrogel-based mechanical metamaterial for the interferometric profiling of extracellular vesicles in patient samples. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 1-14.
Pan, S., Zhang, Y., Natalia, A., Lim, C. Z., Ho, N. R., Chowbay, B., ... & Shao, H. (2021). Extracellular vesicle drug occupancy enables real-time monitoring of targeted cancer therapy. Nature Nanotechnology, 16 (6), 734-742.
Sundah, N. R., Natalia, A., Liu, Y., Ho, N. R., Zhao, H., Chen, Y., ... & Shao, H. (2021). Catalytic amplification by transition-state molecular switches for direct and sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2. Science Advances, 7 (12), eabe5940.
Sundah, N. R., Ho, N. R., Lim, G. S., Natalia, A., Ding, X., Liu, Y., ... & Shao, H. (2019). Barcoded DNA nanostructures for the multiplexed profiling of subcellular protein distribution. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 3 (9), 684-694.
Lim, C. Z., Zhang, Y., Chen, Y., Zhao, H., Stephenson, M. C., Ho, N. R., ... & Shao, H. (2019). Subtyping of circulating exosome-bound amyloid β reflects brain plaque deposition. Nature Communications, 10 (1), 1-11.
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