Abstract

Extracellular Vesicles: From Technology Towards Biomedical Applications

An Hendrix, Professor, Ghent University

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membrane-enclosed communicative particles released in body fluids that carry cell-type-specific biomolecular patterns. Knowledge on their origin, fate and function in the human body is required to accelerate clinical applications but hampered by a plethora of technological pitfalls (PMID:33568799). We created the EV-TRACK knowledgebase to stimulate transparency and steer reproducibility (PMID:28245209). We designed reference EVs, that are trackable and distinguishable from sample EVs, to support instrument calibration and data normalization (PMID:31337761; 33452501). We established reproducible protocols to separate EVs from other particles (PMID:31776460). This supporting ecosystem has steered us towards the pioneering discovery of systemic bacterial EVs in non-septicemic patients, including cancer patients (PMID:30518529; 35033427).