University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Label-free optical signatures of extracellular vesicles and their applications in disease diagnosis and therapy response

Park, Jaena

This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129571

Description

Title
Label-free optical signatures of extracellular vesicles and their applications in disease diagnosis and therapy response
Author(s)
Park, Jaena
Issue Date
2025-04-25
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Boppart, Stephen A.
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Boppart, Stephen A.
Committee Member(s)
  • Cunningham, Brian T.
  • Dobrucki, Wawrzyniec
  • Selting, Kimberly A.
Department of Study
Bioengineering
Discipline
Bioengineering
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • Extracellular Vesicles
  • Label-Free Imaging
  • Multiphoton Microscopy
  • Optical Redox Ratio
  • Cancer Diagnosis
  • Therapy Response Monitoring
  • Urinary Biomarkers
  • Metabolic Profiling
  • Tumor Microenvironment
Abstract
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as critical mediators of cell-to-cell communication, particularly in the tumor microenvironment, where they modulate hypoxia response, drug resistance, and metastatic progression. Beyond these roles, EVs are promising candidates for noninvasive cancer diagnostics and therapy monitoring through liquid biopsy. However, a fundamental barrier to clinical translation lies in the difficulty of characterizing EVs in situ while preserving their biochemical composition, spatial origin, and functional state. Traditional EV analyses often rely on bulk or destructive molecular profiling, limiting their diagnostic specificity and obscuring biologically relevant heterogeneity. More critically, it remains unclear whether the metabolic content of EVs reflects the state of their parental cells. To address these challenges, this thesis integrates label-free intravital and ex vivo optical imaging to investigate the metabolic characteristics of EVs across multiple oncologic conditions, including hypoxia, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Simultaneous label-free autofluorescence-multiharmonic (SLAM) microscopy enables high-resolution imaging and real-time metabolic profiling of EVs using endogenous optical contrast from coenzymes found in EVs. Across tumor models and biofluid-derived EV populations, optical redox ratio (ORR) imaging was used to assess metabolic reprogramming associated with disease state and treatment response. The findings demonstrate that autofluorescence-based EV profiling supports noninvasive, functionally informative liquid biopsy for cancer screening, prognostication, and therapy assessment by capturing dynamic metabolic shifts reflective of parent cell states.
Graduation Semester
2025-05
Type of Resource
Thesis
Handle URL
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129571
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2025 Jaena Park

Owning Collections

Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois