ISEV2022 Annual Meeting Wrap-up

The ISEV2022 meeting was a milestone for ISEV. After 2 years of virtual meetings, we came back in person in the city of Lyon in France. ISEV2022 welcomed more than 1140 registrations from all continents around the world, 6 plenary speakers, 24 exhibitions, 38 oral sessions, 37 poster sessions, and 8 satellite events. The basic research and clinical research wrap-up sessions were delivered by Dr. Guillaume van Niel from the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurosciences of Paris, France and Dr. Dolores Di Vizio from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), respectively.

These sessions included highlights on EV biogenesis and release, targeting, uptake, and function. Important topics included whether EV production and release is inducible or constitutive, and how a cell regulates this in response to exogenous stress such as hypoxia, and physical pressure. Multiple origins of ILVs released as exosomes were outlined, mentioning the role of mitochondria, lysosomes, the ER, and the autophagy process. Highlights also included new methodologies for EVs separation, analysis, and engineering. The use of high-resolution flow cytometry (hrFC) was presented for the separation of particles. Several studies were also presented on the role of EV components, and highlighting how they act in vivo.

The meeting additionally had 9 sessions focused on diagnostics or therapeutics, with presentations about pre-clinical and clinical EVs applications. Examples included the use of safe biomaterials and the use of EVs for cardiac repair organ regeneration. Regarding the use of EVs as potential vaccine carriers in infectious diseases and for treatment of inflammatory diseases or cancer, examples of success were presented. In addition, the meeting highlighted studies to increase EV production, to optimize EV loading with therapeutic payloads, and to control EV biodistribution. The overviews suggested that EVs engineering is still to be fully explored. Often there is the need to simultaneously address engineering of both cargo (for function) and specific targeting. This further increases the complexity of EVs as biologics. Examples of EV loading with signaling molecules, such as lncRNAs, were shown but much more has yet to be explored.

Several groups have started analyzing EVs on serial sample collections (e.g., blood, urine) from larger cohorts of patients when looking for EV-associated biomarkers. The most frequently performed analyses were proteomics and transcriptomics, but new technologies must be improved to develop clinically applicable methods for EVs separation. Some issues remain to be resolved. For example, are in vitro features of EV generation, release, and action transposable for the in vivo context? Possibly, single EVs tracking in vivo could help to answer this question.  It is also unknown what the relative contribution of EVs in short range compared to long range communication is. Also, how do EVs cope with biological barrier and the extracellular matrix and other biological barriers? Certainly, improved imaging capabilities are expected to greatly help to answer these questions and advance EVs‐based nanomedicine applications.