Structure and Function, Technology Development, and Clinical Application

The demonstration that extracellular vesicles (EVs), carrying RNA, DNA, proteins, lipids and metabolites, play important roles in maintaining human health as well as contribute to driving disease has opened up a whole new field of research. Therefore, EVs have tremendous biologic significance and clinical potential, making a meeting focused on this area of research both highly timely and highly significant. The 4th Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and 3rd Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) entitled “Extracellular vesicles: structure and function, technology development, and clinical application" to be held July 28 - August 2, 2024, at the Grand Summit Hotel at Sunday River in Newry, Maine, will bring together a very diverse array of senior and early career investigators in both basic and clinical fields. There will be an emphasis on promoting interactions between participants to facilitate the development of collaborative and translational research. GRCs are one of only a few types of meetings that facilitate these important interactions between senior and junior investigators. This GRC will include sessions covering: 1) Fundaments of EV Biology & Diversity; 2) New EV detection/separation technologies; 3) Novel developments in EV diagnostics; 4) Novel developments in EV engineering for therapy 5) EVs in cancer; 6) EVs in immune biology and disease; 7) EVs in neurobiology and disease; 8) EVs in host-pathogen interactions; 9) Bringing EVs to the clinic; and 10) EVs in cardiovascular diseases. General issues to be focused on will be EV heterogeneity, isolation and quantification strategies, trafficking of EVs, the role of EVs in disease and therapeutic efficacy of EVs, both pre-clinically and clinically. Up to sixteen open speaker slots have been reserved for early career investigators who will be selected from submitted abstracts. There also will be GRC Power Hour, designed to address challenges women and other minorities face in science and issues of diversity and inclusion. In this proposal, we seek to obtain funding to support registration fees and travel of junior investigators for both the GRC and GRS. Overall, the GRC and GRS on EVs promise to be a very diverse and exciting conferences, which should lead to important collaborations that move the field forward both as to basic studies and clinical applications.