Bio

Ugur Aygun is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow working as a postdoctoral researcher at Canary Center for Early Cancer Detection, Stanford University. He received his PhD in electrical engineering, specializing in optical biosensors, optical microscopy, computational imaging, and spectroscopy. His research focusing on the development of novel optical imaging techniques for biomedical applications.

Honors & Awards

  • Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, European Commission (2023-2026)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

  • Program Committee Member, SPIE Photonics West 2026, SPIE – The International Society for Optics and Photonics (2025 - Present)

Professional Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Koc University (2020)
  • Bachelor of Science, Istanbul Technical University (2013)
  • BSc, Istanbul Technical University, Electronics Engineering (2013)
  • BSc, Istanbul Technical University, Physics (Double Degree) (2013)
  • Visiting PhD Student, University of Cambridge, UK, Physics (2014)
  • PhD, Koç University, Electrical Engineering (2020)

Stanford Advisors

Contact

  • Academic
    aygun@stanford.edu
    University - Scholar Department: Radiology Position: Postdoctoral Scholar

All Publications

  • EV-Lev: extracellular vesicle isolation from human plasma using microfluidic magnetic levitation device. Lab on a chip Yaman, S., Devoe, T., Aygun, U., Parlatan, U., Bobbili, M. R., Karim, A. H., Grillari, J., Durmus, N. G. 2025

    Abstract

    Biological nanomaterials have unique magnetic and density characteristics that can be employed to isolate them into subpopulations. Extracellular nanovesicles (EVs) are crucial for cellular communication; however, their isolation poses significant challenges due to their diverse sizes and compositions. We present EV-Lev, a microfluidic magnetic levitation technique for high-throughput, selective isolation of small EVs (<200 nm) from human plasma. EV-Lev overcomes the challenges posed by the subtle buoyancy characteristics of EVs, whose small size and varied densities complicate traditional magnetic levitation techniques. It employs antibody-coated polymer beads of varying densities, integrating immuno-affinity and microfluidics to isolate EVs from sub-milliliter plasma volumes efficiently. It facilitates rapid, simultaneous sorting of EV subpopulations based on surface markers, such as CD9, CD63, and CD81, achieving high yield and purity. Subsequent size and morphology analyses confirmed that the isolated EVs maintain their structural integrity. EV-Lev could help uncover the cargo and function of EV subpopulations associated with multiple diseases including cancer, infectious diseases and help to discover potential biomarkers in small volume samples, while offering a portable, cost-effective, and straightforward assay scheme.

    View details for DOI 10.1039/d4lc00830h

    View details for PubMedID 39918033

  • SHINE: SERS-based Hepatotoxicity detection using Inference from Nanoscale Extracellular vesicle content. bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology Parlatan, U., Boudreau, L., Torun, H., Fan, L., Aygun, U., Gokaltun, A. A., Akin, D., Usta, O. B., Demirci, U. 2025

    Abstract

    Extracellular vesicles (EV) are becoming crucial tools in liquid biopsy, diagnostics, and therapeutic applications, yet their nanoscale characterization remains challenging. In this context, the detection of drug-induced liver injury, i.e., hepatotoxicity, through extracellular vesicle molecular content remains an unexplored frontier. To this end, we present a label-free surface-enhanced Raman (SERS) spectroscopy approach, which provides rapid EV content analysis under ten minutes and requires only 1.3 microliters of sample. Using hepatic cultures as a model, our platform captures distinct and reproducible EV molecular changes in response to acetaminophen-induced hepatoxicity. Our platform achieves exceptional accuracy with root mean squared error values as low as 3.80%, establishing strong correlations between EV spectra and conventional toxicity biomarkers. Unlike previous EV-SERS studies limited to vesicle identification and disease markers, this approach reveals EV drug-response signatures strongly correlated with conventional toxicity markers. These findings establish EVs as dynamic reporters of cellular drug responses and demonstrate use of SERS-based EV detection of hepatotoxicity.

    View details for DOI 10.1101/2025.01.30.635446

    View details for PubMedID 39974950

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC11838255

  • Label-free imaging of exosomes using depth scanning correlation (DSC) interferometric microscopy Aygun, U., Ozkumur, A., Durmus, N., Demirci, U., Urey, H. edited by Shaked, N. T., Hayden, O. SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING. 2020

    View details for DOI 10.1117/12.2543242

    View details for Web of Science ID 000558221300008