This article has been updated to correct that Mursla Bio is not a spinout from the University of Cambridge.
NEW YORK – A new European project called Extracellular Vesicle Research Exchanges for Advanced Biomarkers and Therapeutics (EVEREST) will foster collaborations between EV researchers and aims to develop diagnostic tests for various diseases.
EVs are small, membrane-bound vesicles released by cells into the extracellular environment, which play a role in cell communication and are involved in diverse physiological and pathological processes such as immune response, cancer progression, and tissue repair. EVs have also emerged in recent years as disease biomarkers and drug delivery vehicles, with numerous players developing tests for different indications.
According to Yolanda Alvarez, EU grants project manager at University College Dublin, EVEREST "combines diverse expertise to address critical challenges and unmet medical needs in disease areas such as cancer, cardiovascular conditions, and visual impairment and blindness," reflecting the growing importance of EVs in diagnostics and therapy.
UCD is leading the EVEREST project, which will commence in January 2025 and run through December 2028. Funded through the EU’s Horizon Europe program, it has a budget of €1.3 million ($1.4 million) and involves 21 partners from 11 European countries.
Breandán Kennedy, a professor at UCD’s School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, is the coordinator of the EVEREST consortium and has been studying extracellular vesicles in connection with uveal melanoma, work he will continue as part of the new project. "EVs remain interesting to us, especially in the context of human patients and circulating biomarkers," he said.
Participants in EVEREST plan to exchange staff and share technologies, hoping to standardize their methodologies for isolating, characterizing, and applying EVs in diagnostics and therapeutics, said Kennedy.
Marcelo Fernández Lahore, head of the environmental and industrial biotechnologies unit at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, is overseeing LIST's participation in EVEREST. His institute will focus on standardizing and scaling up the isolation of EVs from different samples through collaboration with different partners. "In the extracellular vesicle research field, the scientific knowledge is far ahead of the technology," he said.
Groups involved in EVEREST also intend to study the roles EVs play in different health conditions, with an emphasis on identifying and validating new markers for molecular tests. "EVEREST will focus on developing proof-of-concept diagnostic tools, such as liquid biopsies, for the early detection of diseases like cancer and cardiovascular conditions," said Kennedy, in addition to laying the groundwork for new tests and therapeutics.
Technologies including genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics will be "integral" to the project, he said, allowing participants to "analyze the molecular cargo" of EVs.
Proteins carried by EVs could serve as markers for cancer or cardiovascular disorders, for instance, whereas small molecules within EVs could help to understand their roles in cell signaling and disease progression, and nucleic acids transported by EVs may be indicators of disease states, Kennedy said.
Diagnostic tools
One of EVEREST's "key ambitions" is to develop diagnostics that rely on EVs, which carry molecular signatures from their parent cells and are "ideal candidates for liquid biopsies," according to Kennedy.
Mursla Bio, a Cambridge, UK-based company that focuses on organ-specific EV isolation, AI-enabled multiomics biomarker discovery from EV cargo, and developing EV multiomics assays for clinical use, is an EVEREST participant. The company, which was founded in 2017 and has an office in Boston, presented results from a multicenter study investigating its biopsy-based EvoLiver blood test for the diagnosis of primary liver cancer among high-risk, cirrhotic patients at a conference earlier this month.
Mursla Bio CEO Pierre Arsene said the company will contribute its scientific expertise in "translating and scaling R&D products into clinically relevant products" to EVEREST, as well as its clinical development, regulatory, and commercial expertise.
"We are the only clinical diagnostic company in the consortium," he said, making Mursla the natural commercial partner for any relevant EV-based clinical products developed by the consortium. He said Mursla will have a "first look" at almost any resulting EV-based products with clinical diagnostic potential in Europe.
Should the resulting tests align with Mursla's interest in liver disease, it would make sense for the company to commercialize them, he added.
According to Alvarez, the EVEREST consortium expects to have validated EV-based assays ready for integration into routine clinical workflows by the project’s end in 2028.