UQCCR Seminar Series with Dr Kevin Koo and Nihar Godbole

Decentralized Liquid Biopsy Biomarker Profiling Technology Development via a Tailored Prostate Cancer Clinical Study with Dr Kevin M. Koo  
Dr Kevin M. Koo is currently a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Emerging Leadership Fellow and Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (PCFA) Future Leader Fellow at The University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research (UQCCR). His research interests are in the development of clinical biomarkers and associated innovation of molecular nanobiosensor technologies for precision medicine applications. He was a recipient of a Metrohm Australia-New Zealand Young Chemist Award (2018), Springer Thesis Award (2019) and Australian Institute of Policy & Science (AIPS) Young Tall Poppy Science Award (2023).

Brief overview: Current molecular profiling technologies for prostate cancer (PCa) patient liquid biopsy (eg. blood or urine) specimens are still confined to centralized laboratory testing, thus escalating testing costs and result turnaround time. To improve this crucial process of precision oncology, this talk introduces a multidisciplinary research pipeline of a) Developing a biomedical microelectromechanical systems (BioMEMS) technology for rapid decentralized liquid biopsy biomarker testing; b) Rigorous clinical testing of a clinically accredited urinary biomarker panel for accurate PCa diagnosis and disease risk stratification; and c) Correlation of molecular biomarker profiling in matched patient liquid biopsy and tissue specimens in an unprecedented multi-year PCa follow-up study.

Extracellular Vesicles: Dual Role as Diagnostic Biomarkers and Targeted Therapeutics with Nihar Godbole   
Nihar Godbole is a third-year PhD student at the University of Queensland, working within the Translational Extracellular Vesicles in Gynaecological Oncology and Obstetrics group. He developed a novel three-dimensional (3D) cell culture model for ovarian cancer, enabling the profiling and validation of extracellular vesicles (EVs) released from the spheroids. He further investigated whether EVs from this model reflect changes in the cancer cells and assist in identifying overall survival outcomes in women with ovarian cancer.

Currently, Nihar is working on an innovative approach to load therapeutic cargo into EVs, transforming them into "Trojan horses" to target tumour cells in ovarian cancer. His goal is to load CRISPR-Cas9 molecules inside EVs to target key genes responsible for ovarian cancer progression.

Brief overview: Nihar will deliver an engaging presentation on his work – optimizing 3D cell culture models to better mimic ovarian cancer, comparing them to traditional 2D cultures to study differences in miRNA content with a special focus on extracellular vesicles and their potential role in metastasis and overall patient survival. Additionally, he will discuss his recent work on transforming these vesicles into "Trojan horses" to target the genes involved in the progression of ovarian cancer.