From glaucoma to Stargardt disease, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) to retinitis pigmentosa, or a corneal transplant to Bietti’s crystalline dystrophy, the 27th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) is working to bring some light to patients with age and congenital diseases that affect vision. From May 7-11, 2024, thousands of scientists are gathering in Baltimore to show their advances against the challenges of delivering genes and cells to the correct place, avoiding immunogenicity and improving diseases.

Despite what University of Pennsylvania (Penn) immunotherapy pioneer Carl June referred to as a “cold slap last November” – a launched investigation by the U.S. FDA into a possible link between CAR T-cell immunotherapies and secondary cancers – new unpublished studies by Penn and Stanford University highlight the rarity of such cases.

Japanese researchers have transplanted human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in a primate model of myocardial infarction and were able to restore heart muscle and function in monkeys. Developed by Tokyo-based Heartseed Inc., the grafted iPSCs consist of clusters of purified heart muscle cells (cardiomyocyte spheroids) that are injected into the myocardial layer of the heart. Published in Circulation on April 26, 2024, the study showed that the cardiomyocyte spheroids survived long term and showed improved contractile function with low occurrence of post-transplant arrhythmias.

Prior to this year’s Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), it had been 14 years since metastasis had been the subject of a plenary session. So, the Tuesday session on “Evolution of the genome, microenvironment, and host through metastasis” had plenty of new insights to share.

Scientists from the Australian National University have discovered the gene mutation responsible for causing psoriasis, and the findings could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment for patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, a chronic inflammatory skin disease. “We were able to identify the gene that could be important in enabling this progression from a skin-only condition to a skin-and-joint condition,” lead study author Chelisa Cardinez told BioWorld.

On March 4, 2024, several groups of scientists discussed the challenges of investigating the effects of HIV in the central nervous system (CNS) at the oral abstract session on neuropathogenesis of HIV held during the 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), in Denver. A cure for HIV will require eliminating the virus in all its reservoirs, those tissues where HIV remains latent but retains the capacity for reactivation and replication. However, despite antiretroviral therapy (ART), the virus could continue to replicate continuously at a low level in some reservoirs, including the CNS.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have identified a proteomic signature that could recognize long COVID six months after acute infection. Biologically, the signature indicated that the complement system remained active in patients with long COVID six months after infection. Translationally, it could lead to a diagnostic test for long COVID, and suggests that targeting the complement system could be a therapeutic approach to prevent or treat the disorder.

Current risk genes for some diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) may have emerged in the past as protection against infection by different pathogens. A group of researchers led by scientists from the University of Copenhagen has analyzed the ancient DNA of European populations and has revealed how MS, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and diabetes arose as populations migrated. This evolution would explain the modern genetic diversity and the incidences of these pathologies observed today in the old continent.

If we unraveled the DNA of the 46 chromosomes of a single human cell, it would barely measure 2 meters. If we did the same with the rest of the body, if we aligned the 3 billion base pairs of its 5 trillion cells, we could travel the distance from the Earth to the Sun more than 100 times. It seems unreachable. However, that is the unit of knowledge of the large sequencing projects achieved in 2023.

Investigators at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have generated a chimeric monkey by injecting an embryonic stem cell into the morula, which is an extremely early embryo consisting of 16 to 32 cells. The animal survived for only 10 days, and it is not the first live birth of a chimeric primate. But it is the first such chimera with contributions from an embryonic stem cell, and that stem cell contributed a far higher proportion of cells in the newborn than have been achieved in previous attempts at creating chimeras.