Eledon Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s tegoprubart, an investigational anti-CD40 ligand antibody, was used as part of the immunosuppressive regimen after the first-ever transplant of a kidney from a genetically modified pig to a human. The tegoprubart procedure was done March 16 at Massachusetts General Hospital on a 62-year-old man with end-stage renal disease.

After many years of testing different monoclonal antibodies against amyloid-β protein, the results obtained are far from being outstanding, and the control of the progression and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains elusive. At the recent AD/PD 2024 conference held in Lisbon, new non-anti-amyloidogenic strategies in the starting line against AD were discussed. Professor Einar Sigurdsson from New York University gave a presentation entitled, “Single domain antibodies for therapy and diagnosis of synucleinopathies and tauopathies.”

Precision psychiatry got some love at two quite different meetings this week, the European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology’s New Frontiers meeting and BioEurope Spring. The New Frontiers Meeting, an annual two-day meeting dedicated to cutting-edge issues in brain disease research, focused on big-picture and scientific – at times almost philosophical – questions of how to get to a classification scheme for brain disorders that aligns with the underlying biology.

One topic at the 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) held in Denver this month was that resistance to antiretroviral therapy (ART) has become a public health problem for people living with HIV. Without a vaccine or a cure, these patients depend on treatments that suppress viremia by preventing the virus from replicating. They are lifelong treatments and, until new advances succeed in eradicating the virus from reservoirs, the only option available.

The third day of the AD/PD 2024 conference in Lisbon started with a plenary lecture given by Professor Howard Fillit entitled, “Translating the biology of aging into new therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease.” Fillit, a recognized neuroscientist and geriatrician, and co-founder of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), pointed to the geroscience hypothesis which postulates that targeting aging processes may result in preventive and therapeutic options for diseases of old age, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Organoids are 3D models created from human stem cells and resemble fetal tissues. In an article published in Nature Medicine on March 4, 2024, researchers from University College London provided details on the possibility of generating organoids from epithelial cells collected from amniotic fluid without terminating the pregnancy.

Overall, the story of HIV is one of astounding success. But to declare victory, it will be necessary to develop a vaccine. The opening session of the 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) 2024 looked back to the failures but also the advances in research, all the steps that over the years brought the basic science knowledge that could bring an HIV vaccine in the future. This year, the former director of the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory at the NIAID Vaccine Research Center, Barney Graham, was named for the Bernard Field Lecture, where he presented “Modern vaccinology: a legacy of HIV research.”

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.

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.