HEXMED

High-throughput sequencing of all mRNA molecules from patient tissues is used for personalized, predictive diagnostics as well as drug testing in vitro. Since the brain is not readily accessible for tissue sampling, alternative diagnostic methods are needed for simple analysis from blood samples. Exosomes in blood are nanoparticles of cellular origin that also contain analytes of the brain.

In this project, methods to enrich exosomes from blood for high-throughput sequencing will be optimized and further developed for patient diagnostics. This method will also be used to analyze exosomes from cultured human brain organoids in vitro. The time course of drug effects can be studied non-invasively.