The NIH Common Fund’s Extracellular RNA (exRNA) Communication Program has been developed to address critical issues in this nascent field. Key components that need attention include 1) defining fundamental principles of exRNA biogenesis, distribution, uptake, and function, and developing molecular tools, technologies, and imaging modalities to enable these studies; 2) generating a reference catalog of exRNAs present in body fluids of normal healthy individuals that would facilitate disease diagnosis and therapeutic outcomes; 3) demonstrating the clinical utility of exRNAs as biomarkers and/or therapeutic agents and developing scalable technologies required for these studies; and 4) developing community resources to provide data access, standardized exRNA protocols, and other useful tools and technologies generated by the exRNA Consortium. Progress in these areas will be presented.
In addition, specific NIH institutes such as NIDA have been promoting research into the development of technologies to enable isolation of CNS EVs from readily accessible tissues as well as for the potential use of EVs as biomarkers of chronic drug exposure or addiction trajectory.