**4. Conclusions**

This first chapter presents a big picture of the EVs research and application as a fast-growing field. There are many EVs studies trying to demonstrate their potential critical role in cell communication and their use in many different biomedical applications. The diversity of biogenesis mechanisms and their cargo content outstand many challenges and questions to be addressed. Advances in standardized methods for purification and analysis are necessary. The increasing knowledge of the different cargo compositions and secretion mechanisms to differentiate the healthy cells and the sick cells need to be clarified to use them as biomarkers, vaccines or therapy. The combination of knowledge and experts deriving from all the fields together with the progress on characterization methods is contributing to use EVs in the biomedical field.

**7**

**Author details**

Boston, MA, United States

Ana Gil-Bona1,2\* and Jose Antonio Reales-Calderon3

Technology and Research (A\*STAR), Singapore

provided the original work is properly cited.

1 The Forsyth Institute, Cambridge, MA, United States

\*Address all correspondence to: agildebona@forsyth.org

2 Department of Developmental Biology, Harvard School of Dental Medicine,

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

3 Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB)—Agency of Science,

*Introductory Chapter: An Overview to the Extracellular Vesicles*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90820*

*Introductory Chapter: An Overview to the Extracellular Vesicles DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90820*

*Extracellular Vesicles and Their Importance in Human Health*

with big challenges to attempt [38].

**4. Conclusions**

biomedical field.

the system with cell targeting properties, making them as great candidates for drug delivery systems [31–33]. EVs are naturally secreted by human cells and they are not strange for the system, avoiding the negative response by the immune cells. The use of EVs as drug delivery systems is focused on improving their ability to reach the target recipient cells and deliver the content, controlling the purity of EV preparation, and analyzing the best administration routes. The challenges are prolonging their circulating and improving targeting. The use of EVs as drug delivery systems is being studied for several disorders, including cancer, infectious diseases, brain disorders, liver diseases, and among others [34–37]. However, this field is still in the early stage of development with great potential for future applications, but also

More applications for EVs have been described. The specific cargo of the EVs makes

This first chapter presents a big picture of the EVs research and application as a fast-growing field. There are many EVs studies trying to demonstrate their potential critical role in cell communication and their use in many different biomedical applications. The diversity of biogenesis mechanisms and their cargo content outstand many challenges and questions to be addressed. Advances in standardized methods for purification and analysis are necessary. The increasing knowledge of the different cargo compositions and secretion mechanisms to differentiate the healthy cells and the sick cells need to be clarified to use them as biomarkers, vaccines or therapy. The combination of knowledge and experts deriving from all the fields together with the progress on characterization methods is contributing to use EVs in the

them useful in the discovery of biomarkers for clinical diagnosis. Because EVs are secreted from almost all cells, they are found in various body fluids, making them easy to collect and analyze and playing a critical role in diagnosis of several conditions, such as cancer, Alzheimer's, epilepsy, and liver diseases [37, 39–42]. EVs participate in pathogenesis and can also be used as diagnosis or vaccines [33, 35, 43]. Last novel applications for EVs include using their signaling properties to repair injured muscle or use them as biomarkers for male infertility or pregnancy-related disorders [44–46].

**6**
