A simple phylogenetic approach to analyze hypermutated HIV proviruses reveals insights into their dynamics and persistence during antiretroviral therapy.

Hypermutated proviruses, which arise in a single Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) replication cycle when host antiviral APOBEC3 proteins introduce extensive guanine to adenine mutations throughout the viral genome, persist in all people living with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). However, hypermutated sequences are routinely excluded from phylogenetic trees because their extensive mutations complicate phylogenetic inference, and as a result, we know relatively little about their within-host evolutionary origins and dynamics. Using >1400 longitudinal single-genome-amplified HIV sequences isolated from six women over a median of 18 years of follow-up-including plasma HIV RNA sequences collected over a median of 9 years between seroconversion and ART initiation, and >500 proviruses isolated over a median of 9 years on ART-we evaluated three approaches for masking hypermutation in nucleotide alignments.

Intracerebroventricular B7-H3-targeting CAR T cells for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma: a phase 1 trial.

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a fatal central nervous system (CNS) tumor that confers a median survival of 11 months. As B7-H3 is expressed on pediatric CNS tumors, we conducted BrainChild-03, a single-center, dose-escalation phase 1 clinical trial of repetitive intracerebroventricular (ICV) dosing of B7-H3-targeting chimeric antigen receptor T cells (B7-H3 CAR T cells) for children with recurrent or refractory CNS tumors and DIPG. Here we report results from Arm C, restricted to patients with DIPG.

Functional MRI for bilingual epilepsy surgery patients: serving a diverse pediatric cohort.

Objective: Functional MRI (fMRI) helps with the identification of eloquent cortex to assist with function preservation in patients who undergo epilepsy surgery. Language and memory tasks can even be used effectively in clinically involved pediatric patients. Most pediatric studies report on English speaking-only cohorts from English-dominant countries, yet languages other than English (LOEs) are increasingly prevalent in countries such as the US.

Dynamic assessment of word learning as a predictor of response to vocabulary intervention.

Introduction: The current study examined the extent to which static and dynamic measures of vocabulary and word learning predicted response and identified poor responders to a vocabulary intervention.

Methods: Participants were 46 preschool children in classrooms randomly assigned to complete the Story Friends intervention in two cluster-randomized efficacy trials. Children were administered a static measure of vocabulary knowledge and a dynamic assessment of explicit word learning prior to intervention.

Interventions during Early Infection: Opening a Window for an HIV Cure?

Although combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been a landmark achievement for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), an HIV cure has remained elusive. Elimination of latent HIV reservoirs that persist throughout HIV infection is the most challenging barrier to an HIV cure. The progressive HIV infection is marked by the increasing size and diversity of latent HIV reservoirs until an effective immune response is mobilized, which can control but not eliminate HIV infection.