UC engineering professor awarded $2M NIH grant

Esfandiari has been studying exosomes for several years. In 2018, her team developed a new lab-on-a-chip device that uses circulating exosomes for noninvasive point-of-care screening. The device extracts exosomes from biofluids in an expedited and cost-effective manner and it was granted a patent in January 2023. That project was partially funded by the National Science Foundation CAREER grant in 2021. 

The team is researching whether these vesicles will have a different genetic coding once electric fields are applied to their parental cells, thus having the ability to pass the new coding on to its neighboring cells. More specifically, if the micro-RNAs are helping with the regeneration of neurons, they could potentially be used in treatment for nerve injury or neurodegenerative diseases. 

The inspiration for this work came from Esfandiari's existing knowledge about the field of exosomes and her interest in the bioelectric signaling in the body. 

"We knew that endogenous electric field affected neurons and helped with neuroregeneration, and that was a nice starting point," Esfandiari said. "We are putting together everything that we already know and have experience with, to find the answer to a new question." 

The grant is a Maximizing Investigators' Research Award for Early-Stage Investigators. An "early stage" investigator is anyone within 10 years of earning their doctorate, making this a unique opportunity for many junior faculty. 

"This grant gives you freedom to explore your research in new ways, and the opportunity of investigating new directions if you find interesting results which you didn't expect, and that's the beauty of science," Esfandiari said.

Esfandiari believes that data can tell a story and encourages her students to investigate it with an open mind, curiosity and persistence. Her team consists of four doctoral students, one master's student and one research associate. Each has different backgrounds, skillsets and interests, creating diversity within the group. For instance, the research associate on Esfandiari's team, Manju Sharma, is a biologist, and while extracting exosomes from patient samples and examining the RNA profile, she is simultaneously training the other students in cell cultures and ensuring the procedures are followed correctly and safely. 

The next five years, Esfandiari and her team will be working closely with extracellular vesicles and their impact on nerve regeneration. The lab's advanced equipment, such as the ONI Nanoimager and the Fluidnatek LE-50 Electrospinner, allows the team to mimic the human body's electric field and analyze the functional importance of vesicles, which could result in significant advancements in regenerative medicine. 

"One thing I love about science is that you can use your knowledge and combine it with creativity and imagination to come up with some new ideas," Esfandiari said. "The NIH recognized our creativity and gave us the opportunity to explore our unique concepts, which is highly important to me as a scientist with an imaginative mind."

Featured Image at top: Leyla Esfandiari outside of the Mantei Center. Photo: Corrie Mayer/ CEAS Marketing.