Standardisation of concentration measurements of extracellular vesicles for medical diagnoses

Welcome

Welcome to the website of European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research Joint Research Project 18HLT01: Standardisation of concentration measurements of extracellular vesicles for medical diagnoses (METVES II).

METVES II

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-derived particles present in body fluids, and EVs have excellent potential as next-generation biomarkers for early diagnosis of common diseases, such as cancer and thrombosis. This project aims to tap the clinical potential of EVs by developing traceable measurements of number concentration, size distribution, refractive index and fluorescence intensity of cell-specific EVs in human blood and urine. The project will develop synthetic reference materials with physical properties resembling EVs, ready-to-use biological test samples, and instrumentation and procedures to standardise EV measurements in clinical laboratories, which will be evaluated in an inter-laboratory comparison study.

Start date: 
End date: 
1 June 2019
1 June 2022

This website contains news, a project summary, and a description of the work packages of Joint Research Project METVES II. In addition, you can find a list with the involved people and institutes, an overview of the generated output, and links relevant to the project. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Extracellular vesicles from human urine
Transmission electron microscopy image of extracellular vesicles from human urine.
Hollow organosilica beads
Transmission electron microscopy image of hollow organosilica beads, which have a size and refractive index distribution similar to extracellular vesicles.
Small angle X-ray scattering setup at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt
Small angle X-ray scattering setup of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt at BESSY II, which is utilized to determine the size of reference particles.

News

Latest presentations

  • Protection by extracellular vesicles & standardization of laboratory measurements
  • Perspective of BAM on Advanced Materials
  • Extracellular vesicles from human plasma and serum are carriers of extravesicular cargo-implications for biomarker discovery

Last video: METVES II interlaboratory comparison study webinar

Funding

This project (18HLT01) has received funding from the EMPIR program co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.