The final day of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) (http://www.isevmeeting.org/) 2015 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, kicked off with three of the newly-added and highly popular “Meet the Experts” sessions in which world-class experts in a particular area give brief presentations and then interact extensively with the audience in a Q & A session. One of these Sunday sessions was entitled “EVs As Diagnostics and Prognostics,” and was chaired by Fred Hochberg (photo), M.D., a world-renowned expert on glioblastoma, Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Attending Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. The two speakers were Clark Chen, M.D., Ph.D., a neurosurgeon/researcher who is the Chief of Stereotactic and Radiosurgery and Director of Medical Education at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD); and Lorraine O’Driscoll, Ph.D., who is Director of Research and Associate Professor of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. In his brief introduction, Dr. Hochberg emphasized the significance of identifying biomarkers for brain tumors, noting that there are currently four known types of glioblastoma, but it would be “hugely valuable” to have biomarkers that would allow physicians to know the specific subtype as quickly as possible in the disease course. He then introduced Dr. Chen, who he said had a particularly beneficial dual expertise in that he was both a neurosurgeon and a research scientist. The title of Dr. Chen’s brief talk was “Promises and Pitfalls of EVs As a Glioblastoma Liquid Biopsy.” Dr. Chen began by describing the rapid lethality of glioblastoma (GB) and the “opacity of the disease.” Presently, there is no treatment for GB and it is generally fatal within 14 months.Login Or Register To Read Full Story