Extracellular vesicles (EVs) represent a diverse class of lipid bilayer membrane vesicles released by both animal and plant cells. These ubiquitous vesicles are involved in intercellular communication and transport of various biological cargos, including proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. In recent years, interest in plant‐derived EVs has increased tremendously, as they serve as a scalable and sustainable alternative to EVs derived from mammalian sources. In vitro and in vivo findings have demonstrated that these plant‐derived vesicles (PDVs) possess intrinsic therapeutic activities that can potentially treat diseases and improve human health. In addition, PDVs can also act as efficient and biocompatible drug carriers. While preclinical studies have shown promising results, there are still several challenges and knowledge gaps that have to be addressed for the successful translation of PDVs into clinical applications, especially in view of the lack of standardised protocols for material handling and PDV isolation from various plant sources. This review provides the readers with a quick overview of the current understanding and research on PDVs, critically analysing the current challenges and highlighting the immense potential of PDVs as a novel class of therapeutics to treat human diseases. It is expected that this work will guide scientists to address the knowledge gaps currently associated with PDVs and promote new advances in plant‐based therapeutic solutions.

As numerous varsity campuses remain closed during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, educators must look for suitable digital tools to conduct lessons and engage learners online. In this report, we discuss how to structure the online lessons using the Community of Inquiry framework (CoI). The CoI was applied to the university elective course "Learning to Choose Better", taught by chemistry faculty. By using the appropriate digital tools in our course, we found success in achieving engagement, active learning, and team teaching. Until the world finds a resolution to the pandemic, online teaching will continue to be the new normal. Educators could view this time as a prime opportunity to experiment, innovate, and break new grounds in the realm of remote online teaching.

Recently, bioinspired cell-derived nanovesicles (CDNs) have gained much interest in the field of nanomedicine due to the preservation of biomolecular structure characteristics derived from their parent cells, which impart CDNs with unique properties in terms of binding and uptake by target cells and intrinsic biological activities. Although the production of CDNs can be easily and reproducibly achieved with any kind of cell culture, application of CDNs for therapeutic purposes has been greatly hampered by their physical and chemical instability during long-term storage in aqueous dispersion. In the present study, we conceived a lyophilization approach that would preserve critical characteristics regarding stability (vesicles’ size and protein content), structural integrity, and biological activity of CDNs for enabling long-term storage in freeze-dried form. Compared to the lyoprotectant sucrose, trehalose-lyoprotected CDNs showed significantly higher glass transition temperature and lower residual moisture content. As assessed by ATR-FTIR and far-UV circular dichroism, lyophilization in the presence of the lyoprotectant effectively maintained the secondary structure of cellular proteins. After reconstitution, lyoprotected CDNs were efficiently associated with HeLa cells, CT26 cells, and bone marrow-derived macrophages at a rate comparable to the freshly prepared CDNs. In vivo, both lyoprotected and freshly prepared CDNs, for the first time ever reported, targeted the injured heart, and exerted intrinsic cardioprotective effects within 24 h, attributable to the antioxidant capacity of CDNs in a myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury animal model. Taken together, these results pave the way for further development of CDNs as cell-based therapeutics stabilized by lyophilization that enabled long-term storage while preserving their activity.

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In drug delivery, the development of nanovesicles that combine both synthetic and cellular components provides added biocompatibility and targeting specificity in comparison to conventional synthetic carriers such as liposomes. Produced through the fusion of U937 monocytes’ membranes and synthetic lipids, our nano-cell vesicle technology systems (nCVTs) showed promising results as targeted cancer treatment. However, no investigation has been conducted yet on the immunogenic profile and the uptake mechanisms of nCVTs. Hence, this study was aimed at exploring the potential cytotoxicity and immune cells’ activation by nCVTs, as well as the routes through which cells internalize these biohybrid systems. The endocytic pathways were selectively inhibited to establish if the presence of cellular components in nCVTs affected the internalization route in comparison to both liposomes (made up of synthetic lipids only) and nano-cellular membranes (made up of biological material only). As a result, nCVTs showed an 8-to-40-fold higher cellular internalization than liposomes within the first hour, mainly through receptor-mediated processes (i.e., clathrin- and caveolae-mediated endocytosis), and low immunostimulatory potential (as indicated by the level of IL-1α, IL-6, and TNF-α cytokines) both in vitro and in vivo. These data confirmed that nCVTs preserved surface cues from their parent U937 cells and can be rationally engineered to incorporate ligands that enhance the selective uptake and delivery toward target cells and tissues.