ExoFest 2019 to Feature Latest Exosome and Extracellular Vesicle Research

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- System Biosciences (SBI), a leading provider of exosome research tools and services, announced the 2nd Annual Exosome Research Festival – ExoFest™ 2019 – will be held tomorrow, June 6, 2019 at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). ExoFest is a one-day meeting to bring together scientists with an interest in exosome and extracellular vesicle research. This year’s symposium is co-organized by SBI and Dr. Lynn Pulliam and Dr. Sharanjot Saini of the UCSF Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Once thought to be little more than a way for cells to offload waste, exosomes (small extracellular vesicles ranging in size from 30 – 200 nm) are a rapidly expanding area of study in basic research, biomarker discovery, and therapeutic delivery. These extracellular vesicles function as signal carriers and tissue re-shapers through their cargo of RNA, proteins, and lipids, and are involved in a wide range of healthy as well as pathogenic processes such as cancer, inflammation, immunity, CNS function, and cardiac cell function. Exosomes are found in a wide range of biofluids, including serum, plasma, ascites fluid, urine, saliva, and tissue culture media, and are considered a rich source of material for biomarker discovery, for example in liquid biopsy diagnostic development.

Keynote speaker Dr. Fatah Kashanchi from George Mason University will describe his lab’s research on the role of extracellular vesicles in the pathogenesis of various viral infections, including HIV-1. Additional speakers from institutions such as Johns Hopkins, UCSF, Stanford, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oregon Health & Sciences University, University of North Carolina, Vitalant Research Institute, ExonanoRNA, and University of California, Davis, will share their latest work in a series of short research talks.

“Exosome research represents a powerful path for future breakthroughs in understanding disease mechanisms, as well as developing diagnostic biomarkers and targeted therapies,” said Dr. Pulliam, Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine at UCSF and Chief, Microbiology at the UCSF Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “ExoFest brings together top scientists representing the best science in the Bay Area and beyond to discuss latest findings and foster collaborations. This year’s program is exceptional, with more than a dozen talks ranging in topics from the relationship between viral infections and exosomes, to the role of extracellular vesicles in conditions such as cancer, viral infections and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and recent work in characterizing extracellular vesicles in the brain, among others.”

SBI was among the first companies to recognize the great research potential of exosomes. The company developed the first commercial exosome isolation kit, ExoQuick^®, which has become the most published exosome isolation reagent in the world.

“We are excited to bring together leading experts in the field of exosome research for our second annual ExoFest conference where we’ll celebrate the latest exosome discoveries and share information about new tools and techniques, which is a core focus of our work at SBI,” said Jake Lesnik, Vice President of Commercial Development at SBI. “We are dedicated to supporting the exosome research community through this conference, along with our hands-on training programs, educational resources, products, and services to support the growing interest in extracellular vesicles and their role in human health.”

For more information about the ExoFest event, visit: https://www.systembio.com/exofest-2019/. More information about SBI’s products and services for exosome research can be found at https://www.systembio.com/products/exosome-research/. Researchers interested in SBI’s 5-day training courses and hands-on workshops on exosome research, held twice yearly on the East and West Coasts, can visit: https://www.systembio.com/exosome-course/.

About System Biosciences (SBI)

System Biosciences (SBI), a Palo Alto, CA-based life science research reagents company, is a global leader in providing exosome research technology, with an extensive portfolio of exosome research tools and services. In addition to ExoQuick^® and ExoQuick-TC^®, SBI offers a broad range of reagents and services for exosome characterization, biomarker discovery and engineering, including ExoFBS™, ExoFlow™, Exo-fect™, and ExoGlow™ technologies, as well as Exo-NGS™ and ExoMS™ services for exosomal RNA-Seq and proteomics analysis, respectively. SBI is also a pioneer in gene delivery technologies, including lentiviral, Minicircle, piggyBac™ and other gene delivery platforms. For more information, visit the SBI website at www.systembio.com.

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