Bilkent University National Nanotechnology Research Center’s (UNAM) Asst. Prof. Fatih İnci has published a new study entitled “Thermally Modulated Metasurface Sensor for Dynamic and Time-Resolved Isolation of Extracellular Vesicles” in Advanced Materials, one of the most prestigious journals in materials science and nanotechnology.
Aiming to overcome key limitations of existing methods—such as low yield, purity challenges, and structural damage—Asst. Prof. İnci and his team developed an innovative metasurface-based sensor integrated with a thermoresponsive polymer, which enables the precise and non-destructive isolation of nano-sized extracellular vesicles (EVs). With this system, vesicles were selectively captured at room temperature and gently released with minimal temperature change (at physiological temperature). Experiments conducted on vesicles derived from breast cancer cells demonstrated that the developed platform achieved significantly higher purity and efficiency compared to conventional methods. Moreover, it was shown that vesicle integrity and EV membrane proteins were preserved while purity levels were improved by up to approximately 100-fold. Because of its applicability across diverse biological samples, this sensor system is not limited to breast cancer. Rather, it offers a flexible and scalable platform for the analysis of vesicles derived from different cell types and diseases.
Read Asst. Prof. Fatih İnci’s full article here: https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202522964
