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).

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.

Venture capitalists (VCs) on three different panels at Biocom California’s Global Life Science Partnering & Investor Conference gave advice to startups on a range of topics from what they’re looking for before investing to what startups should be doing to find pharma partners.

Biocom California’s Global Life Science Partnering & Investor Conference kicked off with a panel discussion focused on artificial intelligence (AI) in drug discovery. While there’s been a lot of hype over how AI and machine learning have the potential to help companies speed up drug development, panelists hypothesized the largest opportunities are in developing new capabilities, potentially increasing the success rate going from discovery to regulatory approval.