Extracellular vesicles: cookbook recipes published by CRIG group leader dr. An Hendrix and colleagues

CRIG

CRIG group leader dr. An Hendrix led an international consortium that established a knowledgebank to guide researchers in the correct reporting of research on extracellular vesicles. The results are published in the leading journal Nature Methods.

Extracellular vesicles (EV) are tiny cell fragments that cells in our body use to communicate with each other and are present in bodily fluids such as blood and urine. The recent unfolding of EV as potential tools to help prevent, diagnose and even treat different diseases, such as cancer, resulted in a multitude of protocols to isolate and analyze EV. Here, things go wrong. Experimental parameters vary between research groups and unless adequately reported, lack the knowledge to interpret and reproduce experiments. An international consortium led by the research team of dr. An Hendrix from Ghent University created a knowledgebank to coach researchers in the correct reporting of experimental parameters. The results are published in the leading journal Nature Methods. The knowledgebank, named EV-TRACK, captures technical and biological features of EV and EV-related isolation and characterization recipes (www.evtrack.org) and informs researchers about (in)complete reporting of these recipes. As such EV-TRACK aims to accelerate breakthroughs in EV research by increasing its reproducibility at the benefit of scientists and the society.

Press articles on Biovox and AlphaGalileo.

Read the full article in Nature Methods.