A research team in Japan, led by Nagoya University’s Akira Yokoi, PhD, has developed an innovative technique using cellulose nanofiber (CNF) sheets derived from wood cellulose to capture extracellular vesicles (EVs) from fluid samples and even organs during surgery. EVs, including exosomes, are small structures from cancerous cells (and also normal cells) that play a crucial role in cell-to-cell communication. Extracting and analyzing EVs using this new technology has the potential to revolutionize early cancer diagnosis and open the door to personalized medicine. The researchers published their findings on November 8, 2023 in Nature Communications. Their open-access article is titled “Spatial Exosome Analysis Using Cellulose Nanofiber Sheets Reveals the Location Heterogeneity of Extracellular Vesicles.”