Blood Podcast

In this week's episode, Blood editor Dr. Natalie Rosen interviews Dr. Lindsey George, Director of Clinical In Vivo Gene Therapy and an attending physician in the Division of Hematology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and also Dr. Miles Horton and Dr. Thomas Lew of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter McCallum Cancer Center, and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research on their latest articles published in Blood on the characterization of the prothrombotic mechanisms of recombinant FVIII Aurora and turning immunosuppressants into tools for bidirectional in vivo control. Dr. George discusses "Factor VIII Aurora: a naturally occurring gain-of-function FVIII variant with enhanced FIXa affinity" and Drs. Horton and Lew discuss "Prime editing enables drug-controllable T-cell therapies with clinical immunosuppression".

In this week's episode, Blood editor Dr. Laurie Sehn interviews Dr. Andrew Lane from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Dr. Pooja Khandelwal from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center on their latest articles published in Blood on new drug combinations for BPDCN and reduced intestinal dysbiosis after HSCT. Dr. Lane discusses "Tagraxofusp, azacitidine, and venetoclax for blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm" and after, Dr. Khandelwal discusses "Human milk oligosaccharide (2′-FL) modifies the gut microbiome in children after bone marrow transplant".

In this week's episode, Blood editor Dr. Laurie Sehn interviews Dr. Annamaria Aprile of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy on her latest article published in Blood titled "Iron overload damages mitochondria and induces metabolic rewiring of hematopoietic stem cells toward glycolysis." Dr. Aprile describes how reducing iron and mitochondrial reactive oxygen species in vivo restores mitochondrial activity, quiescence, and the self-renewal of HSCs. She discusses the therapeutic implications of these findings, focusing on combining iron chelation with a mitochondrial-focused antioxidant to protect or restore stem cell function, a strategy that still needs further testing, including in patient-derived cells.

In this week's episode, Blood editor Dr. Laura Michaelis interviews Dr. Moritz Fürstenau of University Hospital Cologne and Dr. William Dunn of the University of Cambridge on their latest articles published in Blood on CLL and clonal monocytosis. Dr. Fürstenau discusses "Venetoclax combinations in untreated CLL: 5-year results and patient-reported outcomes analysis of the CLL13/GAIA trial" highlighting greater improvements in patient-reported quality of life.  Dr. Dunn discusses "The prevalence and clinical significance of clonal monocytosis" describing how using sex-specific monocyte thresholds and excluding isolated DNMT3A mutations refines the association between CMUS and MN.

In this week's episode, Blood editor Dr. Laurie Sehn interviews Drs. Dan Chalothorn and David Gutstein from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Dr. Ajitha Thanabalasuriar from McGill University on their latest articles published in Blood. The first half of the episode features "Anticoagulation with the mechanistically distinct FXI/FXIa antibodies amrecibart (REGN9933 A2 ) and cenvacibart (REGN7508 Cat )" during which Drs. Chalothorn and Gutstein discuss their research on anticoagulants targeting Factor XI and Factor XIa, which showed promising preclinical results in reducing thrombosis without increasing bleeding risk. They developed two distinct antibodies, targeting different domains of Factor 11, offering potential treatment options for different patient profiles. Next, while discussing "TGF-β–PDL1 signaling in neutrophils preserves the lung barrier during hyperinflammation", Dr. Thanabalasuriar underscores that dissecting neutrophil-specific TGF‑β/PD‑L1 signaling in real ICU patients is essential to translate this pathway into truly personalized therapies that both preserve lung barrier integrity and prevent fatal hyperinflammatory injury.