Welcome

Our roots

The first Society for Endocrinology-sponsored Workshop “Microparticles as regulators and indicators of cardiovascular and metabolic disease: detection and function” was held in London, at the Royal Veterinary College, in December 2013. The aim of this meeting was to introduce microparticle (microvesicle) biology to new audiences and provide a forum for discussion in what was then a relatively new and little understood field. The plenary speakers, Marion Macey (London), Paul Harrison (Birmingham), Manuel Mayer (London), Aled Clayton (Cardiff), Eduard Shantsila (Birmingham) all shared their experience of extracellular vesicle detection and their function, in a range of different disease settings. Five short talks and six posters complemented these talks. The meeting was considered a huge success with approximately 75 registrants (we expected half that number) from across the UK and Europe. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback and there was strong support from delegates for the establishment of a UK Forum. The UK Extracellular Vesicles (UKEV) Forum was duly set up, with representation from across the UK (London, Cardiff, Birmingham, Oxford). We held our first meeting under the UKEV Forum banner in London (again at the RVC) in December 2014, this time sponsored by the British Heart Foundation, and we saw a doubling of registrants (standing room only), a larger number of abstract submissions, and more commercial sponsorship. In 2015 the action moved to Cardiff, again with a full house, good numbers of abstracts and increasingly healthy sponsorship. The UKEV Forum has since been held in Oxford (2016), Birmingham (2017), Sheffield (2018), London (2019). We moved online in 2020 and 2021 and returned in 2022 with a two day meeting in Edinburgh, including an ECR day and a conference dinner (a Ceilidh). This approach welcomed by all and we have continued with this format with our 10^th Anniversary in Cambridge in 2023, then Newcastle in 2024 and Oxford in 2025.