Scott Bonner is a PhD student at Oxford University whose research is centered on extracellular vesicles (EVs). On today’s episode, he explores the following: How research on vesicle heterogeneity might elucidate how differences between vesicle phenotypes result in different and potentially therapeutic functionality How many EVs one cell can produce, and why it is challenging but becoming increasingly feasible to examine singular vesicle phenotypes What role EVs play in cell communication and what other types of cell-to-cell communication exist There is a diverse array of possibilities that surround the use of extracellular vesicles, including the potential to affect and provide therapy for everything from broken bones to cancer, and the ability to safely deliver drugs to specific sites with higher efficacy than a drug alone can achieve. Scott Bonner discusses how his experience as a research assistant for Evox Therapeutics (which has since become the leading name in exosomal and EV-based therapeutics) led him to dive deeper into the study of EVs as a PhD student at Oxford. He expounds on a number of interesting topics, including EV biogenesis, the three main classifications of EVs (microvesicles, apoptotic bodies, and exosomes), the possible forms of EV uptake by different cells, the most common methods of EV purification, and how his research aims to develop an in-depth characterization of the genome and all proteins of EVs in order to determine whether certain subgroups of EVs might fulfill specific, important therapeutic functions. Interested in learning more? Tune in and feel free to email him at scott.bonner@wolfson.ox.ac.uk.