Xtalks — The Life Science Community™, Online webinar
2026-11-09
Liquid biopsy has made it possible to detect and characterize cancer from a blood sample, with much of the field focused on circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). Detection in early-stage disease remains challenging, because ctDNA release appears to depend substantially on cell death, meaning small or slowly proliferating tumors may shed relatively little DNA into circulation. This webinar explores how extracellular vesicles and particles (EVPs) offer another route to accessing tumor-derived molecular information for early cancer detection. EVPs are shed continuously by living cells and carry proteins, nucleic acids and other molecular cargo that reflect their cell of origin. However, because healthy cells also shed EVPs in far greater quantities, distinguishing tumor-derived vesicles from the normal background remains a key challenge. This webinar explores EVPs as a new class of liquid biopsy analytes for early cancer detection. The featured speaker will discuss EVP biology, how they differ from other liquid biopsy analytes and the rationale for measuring multiple cancer-associated biomarkers colocalized on individual EVPs rather than measuring each biomarker independently. The featured speaker will examine how identifying combinations of cancer-associated biomarkers on the same EVP may improve specificity. Individual biomarkers are rarely specific to cancer on their own, but requiring multiple cancer-associated markers on the same particle creates a much rarer biological signature. Ovarian and lung cancer programs will illustrate how this approach is being evaluated across cancer types and clinical settings, including a blinded evaluation of prospectively collected samples from a randomized screening trial. The featured speaker will discuss the scientific rationale, evidence generated to date and remaining questions as EVP-based diagnostics continue to develop. Register for this webinar to learn how EVPs could expand liquid biopsy beyond ctDNA and support earlier cancer detection.
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