The complete relegation of conferences to cyberspace that began with one HIV conference, CROI 2020, ended with another, the 2021 IAS meeting. Though the conference was still largely virtual, there was also an in-person component held in Berlin.

In the July 12, 2021, issue of Nature Aging, researchers working at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging describe analysis from 1,001 immunomes of generally healthy patients correlating soluble immune biomarkers against measures of multimorbidity, immunosenescence, frailty and cardiovascular disease over 11 years of longitudinal study.

Scientists at the University of Melbourne and collaborators performed an in-depth metabolic characterization of precursors of exhausted (Tpex) cells in chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection. Their results showed that Tpex metabolic attributes strongly contrast with those of exhausted effector (Tex) cells in the same environment.

A long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), the RNA component of mitochondrial RNA-processing endoribonuclease, was shown to promote the growth and proliferation of colorectal cancer cells by inhibiting activity of the tumor suppressor protein p53 in a Chinese study led by oncologists Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center.

New evidence about the role of the RSK family of protein kinases in cancer has cut through conflicting experimental data to demonstrate they have different functions and that the RSK4 isoform is a promoter of drug resistance and metastasis in lung and bladder cancer.

A study led by researchers at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute, La Trobe University, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and the University of Melbourne has used a novel optical color-coding barcoded cancer cell tracking strategy to investigate metastatic heterogeneity in breast cancer.

In infectious disease research, most of the research into genetic determinants of susceptibility to infection and disease severity are focused on the host. For COVID-19, for example, the delta variant’s infectivity, and how likely infection is to lead to severe disease, is the focus of an intense research agenda. But host genetics, too, contribute to the consequences of infections. An ongoing study into the host genetics of SARS-CoV-2 infection has identified 13 such factors that affected either the likelihood of contracting SARS-CoV-2, or the severity of disease, gleaned from the data of 50,000 infected persons and 2 million controls.

Targeting viral condensates could be a valuable strategy for developing fast-acting, specifically targeted drugs with a potential broad spectrum of activity against pathogenic viruses, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), by targeting proteins critical for condensate formation, according to an international collaborative study.

Scientists have found a rare genetic variant carried by 1 in 3,000 people, which they say has a larger impact on the risk of developing type 2 diabetes than any other genetic defect identified to date.