Microvesicles…

The Robin Cook novel called the Manner of Death tells about this supposed cutting edge technique for early cancer detection!

In the novel though the technique causes several false positives and complications leading to, well the novel!

But even though the novel may not have a ‘novel’ view of the test; the real world scenario is quite interesting!

In fact they are the new age leading tools for early cancer detection!

Exosomes and microvesicles (collectively known as extracellular vesicles or EVs) are leading tools for non-invasive cancer detection because they carry a genetic and proteomic “fingerprint” of their parent tumor cells.

In 2025, these vesicles are increasingly utilized in liquid biopsies to detect cancer at its earliest, most treatable stages by analyzing samples such as blood, urine, and saliva.

Their lipid bilayer protects delicate cargo (DNA, RNA, proteins) from degradation in the bloodstream.

The core point to note is that ‘tumor’ cells shed significantly more EVs than healthy cells, making them easier to detect than rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs).

Now unlike traditional biopsies that sample one site, EVs provide a comprehensive molecular profile of the entire tumor and its metastases.

These biomarkers are site and tumor specific like Glypican-1 (GPC1) which is a highly sensitive surface protein found on pancreatic cancer-derived exosomes, enabling detection even in pre-cancerous stages!

Then you have the “Lab-on-a-chip” devices which rapidly isolate and analyze EVs from microliters of fluid, drastically reducing processing time!

You also have the electrochemical Biosensors which are portable sensors which detect cancer-specific exosome binding through electrical signal changes, offering potential for point-of-care diagnostics.

Finally like all the field where innovation is the key word, you have AI models which are now used to interpret complex exosome data, enhancing classification accuracy between different cancer subtypes!

Of course like every new technology; even this needs to get fine tuned to become effective in early cancer detection and mainly reduce the false positives.

But the premise is promising! Promising and good delivery was also the feature of Suresh Oberoi!

Now tell your AI enabled smart display to set an alarm and sleep!

Shub ratri!