Extracellular vesicles – new formats and old research questions

With this TEV issue, we are celebrating a small jubilee – this is already our fifth edition after the inauguration in 2019. As we were not sure at the beginning where the path would lead us, today we are proud to have successfully launched the journal. And we are constantly trying to become better.

In our current issue, we thus introduced a few new formats to give younger researchers a platform, but also to provide additional information on what the German Society for Extracellular Vesicles (GSEV) is involved into. Among these, the survey executed by Kerstin Menck requires the most attention. Kerstin’s report summarises the main findings of the first online survey that was conducted by GSEV. She focussed on research topics, method development and potential wishes for collaborations. In a meeting report by Matamoros-Angles, the first EV meeting in Hamburg is described. More than 50 researchers, mostly from the medical department joined this symposium. Finally, GSEV board member Gregor Fuhrmann was involved in the inauguration of a new research centre for bioactive molecules.

From the research perspective, Antoniou et al. present an interesting method paper, in which they compared EV from different neuronal sources and characterised their marker composition. In addition to this original research contribution, we also have three review papers in this issue. Titze und Groß focus on cellular transport of vesicles, while Menck discussed the role of Wnt signalling in EV-mediated communication. From her manuscript, we also selected the cover image of this issue. Finally, Kirsten Wunderlich provides the first mini review on EVs in the retina that we published. 

In our Meet the Researcher section, we chat with Ken Witwer from Johns Hopkins University. Ken has inaugurated the well-known "Extracellular Vesicle Club" and is present at many conferences also in Europe. He will share his opinion regarding rigour in vesicles research, tips for young investigators and also reveal his special connection to Germany.

We appreciate the authors’ and reviewers’ effort in writing and constructively reviewing the manuscripts. As always, gratitude goes to the Trillium Publisher team, without whom it would have been impossible to continue this journal – it feels very good to be part of this team!

We wish everyone an exciting and insightful read!