Single-cell microdevice isolates and profiles extracellular vesicles over weeks

Extracellular vesicles and particles are central to how cells communicate, especially in cancer, where they help shape metastasis and treatment resistance. However, most existing methods analyze vesicles in bulk, masking differences between individual cells. Some single-vesicle techniques offer particle-level detail but lose information about the cell that produced them. Other single-cell platforms face practical limits, such as short culture times or signal mixing between cells. These limitations make it difficult to study how individual cells behave over time. Based on these challenges, there is a clear need for technologies that can culture single cells long-term while isolating and analyzing the vesicles each cell produces.