Just around the corner is the publication of Exosomes in Health and Disease, an enormous compilation of data on exosomes and their role in almost every disease you can imagine. What’s an exosome, you might ask? At just a fraction of the size of even the smallest bacteria, exosomes are tiny vesicles communicating with and carrying information to cells anywhere in the body. We’ve known about them for decades, but a recent discovery holds huge implications for our understanding of epigenetics, epigenetic inheritance, and the causes of diseases. Denis Noble, physiologist, researcher, and former Chair of Cardiovascular Physiology at the University of Oxford joins the podcast today to offer a fascinating conversation about the presence of epigenetic data within exosomes, their ability to control the genome of other cells by simply communicating with them, and the profile components that could indicate cancer or a particular disease state. He also discusses the techniques used to extract such small vesicles from blood plasma and the challenges that this process has brought about, the transmission of epigenetic information by exosomes through the germline, symbiogenesis, and more. Tune in for all the details.