Novel therapeutics of extracellular vesicles (EV)- A disruptive approach for anti-cancer solution.

As a tiny vesicle with a lipid bilayer membrane that can be secreted by most cells in the body, extracellular vesicles or exosomes carry and transmit important signal molecules, Therefore, they have been a research hotspot in biomedicine and biomaterials due to their size advantages and huge potential in drug therapy.

With a comprehensive intellectual property portfolio creation including proprietary manufacturing, purification, and preservation methods, as well as a clinical translation platform establishment, our EV novel therapeutics, Troy-Car-Exos, are engineered exosomes with safe and potent modality for precision delivery of advanced payloads. Troy-Car-Exos owned patented endogenous immune checkpoint antibody and designed a novel genetic engineering modification method to fuse on the EV's membrane proteins. Furthermore, they are loaded with small molecules and nucleic acid drugs with high efficiency. This nano-level immune checkpoint nanobody as the target of Troy-Car-Exos, is highly-expressed outside the double-layer phospholipid layer of exosomes, which increases the specificity of exosomes to attack tumors instead of normal tissue cells. In addition, Troy-Car-Exos with immune checkpoint nanobodies can also prohibit the inhibitory effect of immune cells caused by immune checkpoint antigens after binding to tumor cells, thus increasing the killing of tumor cells by T cells.

▲ Figure 1. the schematic of Troy-Car-Exos uptake by tumor cells

Interesting Elements:

• Exosome is natural nano-sized vesicles secreted by cells and found in all biological fluids with distinct internalization mechanisms, low toxicity, low immunogenicity, and high stability.
• Body’s delivery and communication system containing a variety of bioactive protein/nucleic acid/chemotherapy payloads, delivered without immune recognition.
• Tumor immune check points target protein on the EV's membrane could navigate exosomes to the tumor cells.
  Payloads:
  √ miRNA、siRNA、mRNA
  √ ASO、Aptamer、Chemotherapeutics

Purpose & Functions:

Troy-Car-Exos are loaded with nucleic acid and chemotherapy drug. The function of nucleic acid drug is to prevent distant metastasis, while chemotherapy drug can kill tumor cells. Combining the above two functions, Troy-Car-Exos can effectively kill tumors and inhibit the distant metastasis at the same time.

▲ Figure 2. The design of Troy-Car-Exo and its functions

Achievements

• National Innovation Award 19th, 2022
• International Innovation Award@ Bangkok, 2022
• Y-S Chen et. al. “Additive manufacturing of Schwann cell-laden collagen/alginate nerve guidance conduits by freeform reversible embedding regulate neurogenesis via exosomes secretion towards peripheral nerve regeneration, Biomaterial Advance (Accepted)
• USA Patent Submission. The mass production of exosomes with orientable targets to carry multiple combinations of cancer treatments method thereof.