[Music]
[Applause]
cells within our bodies communicate with
each other just like we do sometimes
with cells next door and other times at
cells at opposite ends of the body we’ve
known for quite a while that cells use
neurons and hormones to communicate and
most of us can relate to adrenaline the
hormone that is released in our
bloodstream under stressful situations
like giving TED talk turns out that our
body is in fact a giant factory of these
teeny tiny nano particles called the
exosomes and that provides to our body
with another mechanism for cell
communication almost all cells in our
body are continuously manufacturing
these nanoparticles and secreting them
into our body fluids into the
extracellular environment which is our
blood or brain or saliva and our urine
once into the body fluid these teeny
tiny exosomes float to distant parts of
the body and when they do they’re
carrying these very specific signals and
very specific cargos for the recipient
cells mostly with good consequences but
sometimes with bad ones too and what
they’re doing is they’re taking these
specific signatures specific signals
from the cell and talking to very
distant cells in our bodies now to give
you a size perspective of how small
these particles are a single exosome is
about a thousand times smaller than a
typical cell SI creating it or to put it
another way about a million exosomes
would fit on the tip of a very very
sharp pencil so how come did we miss
this 24-7 nanofactory although they were
discovered in the 1980s scientists
initially thought these exosomes
were cellular garbage bags throwing out
unwanted
proteins in 2007 the discovery that
exosomes were actually also transferring
genetic material between cells suggested
that was there was a larger role of
these particles in cellular
communication however their small size
was still a challenge for us scientists
seeing is believing and the first step
to understanding too small to be seen
under a regular microscope the only way
to actually look at these particles was
through electron microscopy a method
that involved bombarding these fragile
particles with electrons under harsh
environmental conditions high vacuum
unfortunately the process was too harsh
and did provide little information if
any one random day in 2010 while talking
to my balls his friends at UCLA I
understood how frustrated they were by
not being able to see these single
exosomes at the individual particle
level preventing them for studying them
more effectively and a thought came to
my mind Robert Hooke a famous
seventeenth century scientist had once
stated with the help of microscopes
there is nothing so small as to escape
our inquiry embracing his idea and as a
nanotechnologist and also to satisfy my
own growing curiosity I decided to
examine these particles using the atomic
force microscope an AFM actually feels
and touches the surface of the particle
using a very very fine mechanical probe
without damaging the particles the
fragile particles under observation and
that was my first meeting with the
exosome our group at UCLA was the first
one to use the atomic force microscope
to image exosomes what you see on the
screen and appears as the galaxies of
stars are in fact exosomes floating in
our blood a picture
that I took using our nanoscale
microscopy now with the use of the
atomic force microscope we could do much
more than just observe exosomes we could
look at their shape their size and their
structure in greater detail so here is a
zoomin of one of such particle in
exosome and you can see the particle
exhibiting a vesicular shape something
that was undetectable previously using
the electron microscopy so because we
were just not observing but also
touching and feeling we could do a lot
more we could count the number of
particles that floated in our blood at a
time we could visualize their shape at
the nano scale we could measure the size
of these particles and also we could
measure the stickiness of these
particles a characteristic that helps
them stick to other cells and we could
measure how these particles deformed
under force when they go through the
harsh bio fluid environments still
preserving their precious cargo these
new approaches are enabling us to answer
more complex questions such as what
exactly is the exposome signaling why
and how is this cell accepting a package
through the exosomes coming from a
distant cell and more importantly what
can we do to exploit this exchange of
signals and cargo between distant cells
through the exams to our advantage
research has shown that X is Ohm’s
typically helped in neural communication
and boost our immune system they also
stimulate tissue regeneration wound
healing and prevent infections but
that’s not always true
sometimes the exosomes can malfunction
as in the case of cancer our group has
identified cancer exosomes
in body fluids of patients with cancer
and this includes in saliva and blood in
urine when these cancer
somes float within the body fluids they
have one specific mission cancer
carrying signals to other non cancerous
cells what you see here on the screen is
a cancer cell that I caught in the act
you can see this burst of X’s ohms
coming out of the of the membrane
surface these are the eggs as ohms that
are carrying the cancer signals signals
that we now know go far and wide here is
another example of exosomes from a
highly aggressive brain cancer these
tentacles that you see these are very
fine nano structures about what two
thousand times smaller than of a human
hair and these seem like perfect hooks
for these exosomes
to latch on to adhere to other non
cancer cells and thereby transfer their
hands are carrying signals to other non
cancerous cells and thereby spread
disease what ignites scientists like me
to study individual exosomes is the hope
that they bring to the biomedical field
first being able to successfully
identify healthy from diseased exosomes
gives us a powerful tool to actually
very early on detect diseases such as
Alzheimer’s and cancer just by using a
single drop of blood or even saliva also
what we can do is we can use their
natural abilities to pass through the
blood-brain barrier and use them as
novel drug delivery agents using them as
novel drug delivery agents we can target
them to neurodegenerative diseases such
as Alzheimer’s multiple sclerosis and
different cancers especially the deadly
brain cancers that are very difficult to
tackle otherwise it is through
nanotechnology that we are deciphering
how exosomes communicate we are trying
to understand this complex process of
the exosomes carrying good signals but
when the malfunction they carry the bad
signal
and what they do is then spread the
disease so what could be a good
communication it can easily be turned
into a bad communication so I’m always
I’m often asked what do I care so much
about X’s ohms and nanotechnology my
father is a doctor and undoubtedly hope
that I would follow his career path but
I always wanted to use innovative ways
to break those code the signals that
cells communicate with each other how
human diseases spread what can we do
through nanotechnology and other
innovative ways to actually prevent that
spread and also use the healing powers
of the good exosomes to actually prevent
diseases that are difficult to manage
through just the proteomic or the
genomic methods and find novel ways and
that’s what inspires me about
nanotechnology and the exams it is this
this hope to be able to use
nanotechnology to look at these small
particles understand them at a very
precise level and then being able to
manipulate them to actually help the
body do more good than the bad and I am
hopeful that with the work that we are
doing today we will be able to provide a
better and healthier future for our kids
the journey of exosomes has just begun
with nano steps and giant leaps thank
you
you
[Applause]
cells within our bodies communicate with
each other just like we do sometimes
with cells next door and other times at
cells at opposite ends of the body we’ve
known for quite a while that cells use
neurons and hormones to communicate and
most of us can relate to adrenaline the
hormone that is released in our
bloodstream under stressful situations
like giving TED talk turns out that our
body is in fact a giant factory of these
teeny tiny nano particles called the
exosomes and that provides to our body
with another mechanism for cell
communication almost all cells in our
body are continuously manufacturing
these nanoparticles and secreting them
into our body fluids into the
extracellular environment which is our
blood or brain or saliva and our urine
once into the body fluid these teeny
tiny exosomes float to distant parts of
the body and when they do they’re
carrying these very specific signals and
very specific cargos for the recipient
cells mostly with good consequences but
sometimes with bad ones too and what
they’re doing is they’re taking these
specific signatures specific signals
from the cell and talking to very
distant cells in our bodies now to give
you a size perspective of how small
these particles are a single exosome is
about a thousand times smaller than a
typical cell SI creating it or to put it
another way about a million exosomes
would fit on the tip of a very very
sharp pencil so how come did we miss
this 24-7 nanofactory although they were
discovered in the 1980s scientists
initially thought these exosomes
were cellular garbage bags throwing out
unwanted
proteins in 2007 the discovery that
exosomes were actually also transferring
genetic material between cells suggested
that was there was a larger role of
these particles in cellular
communication however their small size
was still a challenge for us scientists
seeing is believing and the first step
to understanding too small to be seen
under a regular microscope the only way
to actually look at these particles was
through electron microscopy a method
that involved bombarding these fragile
particles with electrons under harsh
environmental conditions high vacuum
unfortunately the process was too harsh
and did provide little information if
any one random day in 2010 while talking
to my balls his friends at UCLA I
understood how frustrated they were by
not being able to see these single
exosomes at the individual particle
level preventing them for studying them
more effectively and a thought came to
my mind Robert Hooke a famous
seventeenth century scientist had once
stated with the help of microscopes
there is nothing so small as to escape
our inquiry embracing his idea and as a
nanotechnologist and also to satisfy my
own growing curiosity I decided to
examine these particles using the atomic
force microscope an AFM actually feels
and touches the surface of the particle
using a very very fine mechanical probe
without damaging the particles the
fragile particles under observation and
that was my first meeting with the
exosome our group at UCLA was the first
one to use the atomic force microscope
to image exosomes what you see on the
screen and appears as the galaxies of
stars are in fact exosomes floating in
our blood a picture
that I took using our nanoscale
microscopy now with the use of the
atomic force microscope we could do much
more than just observe exosomes we could
look at their shape their size and their
structure in greater detail so here is a
zoomin of one of such particle in
exosome and you can see the particle
exhibiting a vesicular shape something
that was undetectable previously using
the electron microscopy so because we
were just not observing but also
touching and feeling we could do a lot
more we could count the number of
particles that floated in our blood at a
time we could visualize their shape at
the nano scale we could measure the size
of these particles and also we could
measure the stickiness of these
particles a characteristic that helps
them stick to other cells and we could
measure how these particles deformed
under force when they go through the
harsh bio fluid environments still
preserving their precious cargo these
new approaches are enabling us to answer
more complex questions such as what
exactly is the exposome signaling why
and how is this cell accepting a package
through the exosomes coming from a
distant cell and more importantly what
can we do to exploit this exchange of
signals and cargo between distant cells
through the exams to our advantage
research has shown that X is Ohm’s
typically helped in neural communication
and boost our immune system they also
stimulate tissue regeneration wound
healing and prevent infections but
that’s not always true
sometimes the exosomes can malfunction
as in the case of cancer our group has
identified cancer exosomes
in body fluids of patients with cancer
and this includes in saliva and blood in
urine when these cancer
somes float within the body fluids they
have one specific mission cancer
carrying signals to other non cancerous
cells what you see here on the screen is
a cancer cell that I caught in the act
you can see this burst of X’s ohms
coming out of the of the membrane
surface these are the eggs as ohms that
are carrying the cancer signals signals
that we now know go far and wide here is
another example of exosomes from a
highly aggressive brain cancer these
tentacles that you see these are very
fine nano structures about what two
thousand times smaller than of a human
hair and these seem like perfect hooks
for these exosomes
to latch on to adhere to other non
cancer cells and thereby transfer their
hands are carrying signals to other non
cancerous cells and thereby spread
disease what ignites scientists like me
to study individual exosomes is the hope
that they bring to the biomedical field
first being able to successfully
identify healthy from diseased exosomes
gives us a powerful tool to actually
very early on detect diseases such as
Alzheimer’s and cancer just by using a
single drop of blood or even saliva also
what we can do is we can use their
natural abilities to pass through the
blood-brain barrier and use them as
novel drug delivery agents using them as
novel drug delivery agents we can target
them to neurodegenerative diseases such
as Alzheimer’s multiple sclerosis and
different cancers especially the deadly
brain cancers that are very difficult to
tackle otherwise it is through
nanotechnology that we are deciphering
how exosomes communicate we are trying
to understand this complex process of
the exosomes carrying good signals but
when the malfunction they carry the bad
signal
and what they do is then spread the
disease so what could be a good
communication it can easily be turned
into a bad communication so I’m always
I’m often asked what do I care so much
about X’s ohms and nanotechnology my
father is a doctor and undoubtedly hope
that I would follow his career path but
I always wanted to use innovative ways
to break those code the signals that
cells communicate with each other how
human diseases spread what can we do
through nanotechnology and other
innovative ways to actually prevent that
spread and also use the healing powers
of the good exosomes to actually prevent
diseases that are difficult to manage
through just the proteomic or the
genomic methods and find novel ways and
that’s what inspires me about
nanotechnology and the exams it is this
this hope to be able to use
nanotechnology to look at these small
particles understand them at a very
precise level and then being able to
manipulate them to actually help the
body do more good than the bad and I am
hopeful that with the work that we are
doing today we will be able to provide a
better and healthier future for our kids
the journey of exosomes has just begun
with nano steps and giant leaps thank
you
you
Please follow and like us: