UCD Conway Institute hosts the 1st Extracellular Vesicle Workshop in Ireland

The 1st Extracellular Vesicle (EV) Workshop to be hosted in Ireland covering key aspects of EV isolation to analysis took place from the 13th to the 16th March in the UCD Conway Institute.

The workshop was fully subscribed with 28 researchers attending from Ireland, Spain, Lithuania, Norway, Belgium, Slovakia, United Kingdom and USA.

PhD student, Jane Howard demonstrates EV isolation by SEC

The workshop goal was to promote high standards in EV isolation and analysis, and to support flow cytometry best practice for EV characterisation. Participants were provided with a clear overview of the process of isolating extracellular vesicles from various sources including cell culture supernatants and biofluids, using a variety of methods and approaches recommended by the MISEV2018 guidelines, and highlighting important considerations for sample collection, processing and reporting.

The workshop consisted of lecture sessions from international EV researchers and hands-on practical sessions with access to state-of-the-art technologies, new reagents for EV research and application specialists from a variety of companies.

International speakers included John Nolan (Scintillon Institute, San Diego & CEO Cellarcus Biosciences), Vera Tang (University of Ottawa), Joshua Welsh (National Cancer Institute), Edwin van der Pol (Amsterdam University Medical Center), Matthew Goff (Beckman Coulter Life Sciences), Roisin Dwyer, (NUI Galway), Paul Cahill (DCU), David Gomez Matallanas (UCD) and Dimitri Scholz (UCD). The full programme can be viewed at https://www.ucd.ie/extracellularvesiclesworkshop/programme/

The workshop was organised by Margaret Mc Gee (SBBS and UCD Conway Institute), Alfonso Blanco (UCD Conway Institute), Kieran Brennan (SBBS and UCD Conway Institute) and John Tigges (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School) with contribution from Jane Howard (SM and UCD Conway Institute), Valentina Tonelotto (SBBS and UCD Conway Institute) and Irene Castrosín (Erasmus student at UCD Conway Institute) for hands-on practical sessions.

The event was supported by the Horizon Europe Twinflag consortium and industry leaders including Beckman Coulter, LabPlan, Cellarcus Biosciences, NanoFCM, Luminex, Particular Sciences, Immunostep and Miltenyi Biotech.