Congrats to Alex McFarland, Friederike Herbst and the team on their preprint on novel methods for tracking off-target base editing. A much needed tool!

We are very fortunate to have Nicola Segata presenting a seminar Friday August 29, 2025. Please join us!

Thanks so much to Bruce Walker for the moving talk on HIV immunology and initiatives to mitigate AIDS in Africa. It is heartbreaking that federal cuts to PEPFAR over the next four years are projected to lead to 4 million additional deaths and 6 million additional infections (UNAIDS).

Congrats to Marie Seleme, Aradhana Kasimsetty and the team on their report of effective methods for increasing expression from AAV vectors by blocking SUMOylation. Effective boosting by treatment with an inhibitor presently in use in humans! (PMID: 40263936)

The recent Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2025 was a moving tribute to the importance of the HIV research field and efforts to eradicate HIV globally. Presentations are now up online. It was a great honor to deliver the Fields Lecture!
www.croiwebcasts.org/console/play...

Congrats to Carter Merenstein on completion of his PhD thesis! A blizzard of impressive first author papers on the human microbiome in health and disease. Well done!! Examples: PMID: 37217829, PMID: 36195943, PMID: 34399607

Fascinating paper from Lev Litichevskiy et al. on the microbiome in a very large cohort of diversity outbred mice. Exciting new insights into mechanisms linking the microbiome to diet, health and aging. PMID: 40164832

PLoS Pathogens just published on Virolithopanspermia, the idea that viruses may move through space inside rocks. Maybe Earth is spewing viruses into space, and going the other way, maybe viral particles would be a good target to evaluate for signs of life in extraplanetary rocks! PMID: 40100845

The projected cuts to PEPFAR and USAID will result in thousands of aviodable deaths world-wide. The US has led the world in helping the vulnerable under both Republican and Democratic leadership. Please write your elected leaders to support PEPFAR and USAID. 5CALLS.org makes it easy.

Terminating PEPFAR and USAID will lead to the avoidable deaths of thousands of people from HIV/AIDS. Add your voice to the protests! The photo shows a moving public event yesterday in San Francisco.

After >34,000 patients treated, CART therapy has a terrific record. We now have two examples of vector integration in tumor suppressor genes associated with T cell malignancies. PMID: 39908432; PMID: 39779930. Nevertheless, the overall safety record remains impressive.

Big congrats to Andrew Marques, Erick Gagne, and the team for their exciting PLoS Path paper on SARS-CoV-2 in deer in PA. At least 12 jumps from humans into deer!
PMID: 39854608

Big congratulations to Julie Jadlowsky, Elizabeth Hexner, Joe Fraietta and the (huge) team on their recent Nature Medicine paper on safety of CART therapy. No detectable transformation due to vector integration in 783 patients.
PMID: 39833408

Check out the updated booklet “Improving Your Scientific Writing”. The latest edition contains guidance on interacting with AI and use of respectful “person-first” language. The PDF is free!
www.med.upenn.edu/bushmanlab/a...

Thanks so much to Eric Freed for a great talk today in the Penn Microbiology Seminar Series on HIV maturation and therapeutics. Beautiful studies using “forced evolution” of HIV to understand determinants of key pathways.

Excited to share updates to Microbiocode, the code repository for the PennCHOP Microbiome program. Numerous well curated software packages to enable Microbiome research. Check it out!
www.med.upenn.edu/microbiocode/

Congrats to Aradhana Kasimsetty and the team on their publication in Molecular Therapy—topoisomerase poisons boost AAV transduction, and alter integration site distributions. PMID: 39618424.