Abstract

Extracellular Vesicles and Mimetic Technologies for Theranostics

Yong Song Gho, Professor, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH); President of Korean Society for Extracellular Vesicles; Chairman, Rosetta Exosome

Communication between cells and environment is an essential process in living organisms. The secretion of extracellular vesicles is a universal cellular process occurring from simple organisms to complex multicellular organisms, including humans. Throughout evolution, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells have adapted to manipulate extracellular vesicles for intercellular communication via outer membrane vesicles in the case of Gram-negative bacteria and ectosomes (also known as microvesicles) or exosomes in eukaryotic cells. Recent progress in this area has revealed that extracellular vesicles play multiple roles in intercellular and interspecies communication, suggesting that extracellular vesicles are NanoCosmos, i.e., extracellular organelles that play diverse roles in intercellular communication (http://evpedia.info). This presentation will briefly introduce the state-of-art extracellular vesicle research and focuses on our recent progress in novel extracellular vesicle-mimetic technologies for targeted drug delivery, theranostics, and epigenetic reprogramming as well as for adjuvant-free, non-toxic vaccine delivery system against bacterial infection. Future research directions on our extracellular vesicle isolation technology ‘ExoLutE’ and bacterial extracellular vesicles-based cancer immunotherapy for basic researches and clinical application will be briefly introduced.