The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) released an update of its 2021 Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation today. The targeted update addresses significant advances in the development and application of human stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEMs) and recommendations for research oversight outlined in a white paper from the ISSCR Embryo Models Working Group published in June.
SCBEMs are three-dimensional stem cell-derived structures that replicate key aspects of early embryonic development. These innovative models offer unprecedented potential to enhance our understanding of human developmental biology and reproductive science.
This Guidelines update underscores the ISSCR’s steadfast commitment to proactively addressing the ethical and regulatory considerations that accompany scientific advances. Stem cell-based embryo models are transforming how we study early human development, and it is critical that this progress is supported by clear guidance, a strong sense of responsibility, and global consensus. I commend the ISSCR Embryo Models Working Group for their thoughtful and forward-looking leadership in ensuring our guidelines evolve in step with this rapidly advancing field.”
Hideyuki Okano, ISSCR President
The ISSCR Guidelines have long served as the international benchmark for scientific and ethical rigor, offering trusted guidance for oversight and transparency in stem cell research. They support the development of regulatory frameworks in countries where such systems are still emerging. Adherence to the guidelines provides assurance that research is conducted with integrity and new therapies are safe, effective, and evidence based.
The revisions included in the 2025 update to the Guidelines are limited to SCBEM technologies and are the result of a targeted, deliberative process led by Amander Clark, University of California, Los Angeles, USA, and Janet Rossant, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada. This focused approach enabled the ISSCR to respond thoughtfully to a defined scientific and oversight need, and to offer updated international guidance for researchers, journal editors, regulators, funders, and the public. The ISSCR intends to continue using this agile, collaborative model to address evolving areas of stem cell research that warrant updated, globally harmonized oversight standards.
Key revisions
Replaces the classification of models as “integrated” or “non-integrated” with the inclusive term “SCBEMs.”
Proposes that all 3D SCBEMs have a clear scientific rationale, have a defined endpoint and be subject to an appropriate oversight mechanism.
Reiterates that all SCBEMs are in vitro models and must not be transplanted in the uterus of a living animal or human host.
Includes a new recommendation that prohibits the ex vivo culture of SCBEMS to the point of potential viability – so-called ectogenesis.
Unless you have been living under a rock, then you have likely heard the news that Taylor Swift is about to enter a new music era. This week, the pop star announced that she will soon release her 12th studio album, titled The Life of a Showgirl. Not much is known about the project just yet—including its overall sound, cover, or even when it will grace our ears—but the title alone has been enough to garner some major intrigue amongst Swifties.
The album title’s nod to showgirls certainly evokes a specific aesthetic to look forward to. When you think of showgirls, you think of over-the-top Las Vegas glamour—a fabulous wardrobe resplendent in various textures like crystals, sequins, and feathers. You think of shimmer, and you think of excess. And while time will tell if Swift leans into such disco ball dressing for the new musical chapter, her life in looks thus far has proven that she is already well-suited for the transformation to come. In fact, lets not even call it a transformation—rather a continuation of what she already does best.
Taylor Swift, a true showgirl, wearing Reem Acra back in 2011.
Video: Getty Images
Both on the red carpets and on stage, Swift has long favored a dazzling design that is heavy on glitter and shine. Since she first burst onto the scene in the late 2000s, Swift has leaned into showmanship with her fashion choices (owing much of that look to longtime stylist, Joseph Cassell Falconer). Whether she has been performing for fans or attending awards ceremonies like the Grammys or MTV VMAs, the singer has consistently worn shining, theatrical pieces.
Back at the 2009 VMAs (yes, the year Kanye West interrupted her speech), she donned a one-shouldered Kaufman Franco gown in hues of silver. It practically demanded a stage and spotlight. The same could be said for her 2019 iHeartRadio Awards look—a purple sequined Rosa Bloom romper that could easily be replicated for a showy Vegas production.
Glittering in Gucci at the 2024 Golden Globes.
Video: Getty Images
More recently, Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour delivered some of her most extravagant stage costumes to date. Whether it was the crystal-covered Versace bodysuits or the bejeweled Roberto Cavalli jumpsuits, Swift wore statement looks that could be seen from the nosebleed section. You could say her tour outfits made the whole place shimmmeerrrrrrrr.
Below, more of Swift’s best showgirl looks over the years.
He was born Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt at the turn of the century, but by his death, all knew him as Donn Beach. He even legally changed his name to reflect the moniker.
Today, he’s best known as the grandfather of tiki — the romanticized, often escapist take on the South Pacific. It’s defined by its lively aesthetics like colorful Hawaiian shirts and fruity, rum-forward drinks like the zombie and mai tai. Beach is the subject of The Donn of Tiki, a documentary from Max Well and Alex Lamb, which serves to demystify the life behind the showman.
When Beach was young, he traveled around the world twice, hitting locales like Europe, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. He eventually, as Well puts it, washed onto the shores of prohibition-era Hollywood. There, he teamed up with his brother, who worked on silent films, and became a technical advisor on some South Pacific-oriented projects. At the same time, the duo engaged in rum-running.
“At this time in history, rum had really fallen off the palette of most Americans. They didn’t enjoy rum. Whiskey had taken over. But during Prohibition, rum was something that was accessible. And it was safe to drink because it was made in actual distilleries and smuggled to the U.S.,” Lamb says. “It [was] a little safer than bathtub gin. You knew if you were drinking rum, you weren’t going to go blind.”
During that period, Well says, Beach opened the first iteration of what would become Don The Beachcomber — the world’s first tiki bar. It officially opened on Hollywood Boulevard the day after prohibition ended in 1933.
“Which leads to the question of, ‘where do you get rum the day after Prohibition?’ It gives us evidence that he was running this bar long before Prohibition ended, because just the logistics of opening a bar the day after is nearly impossible,” Lamb points out.
What set the bar apart from others at the time were his complex drinks and the ingredients used to make them, such as fresh juices and homemade syrups.
“Donn knew how to make drinks. Because of his travels, he knew how to make daiquiris and planter’s punch. He knew how to make rum palatable to an American audience,” Well says. “And that really was the birth of the craft cocktail, of creating something that was different than anyone ever had before.”
The documentary also features Beach himself — or at least his voice.
Lamb and Well uncovered a 1986 interview in a University of Hawaii library. “We were just taken with Donn’s charisma and his personality. We felt like we really needed to have his voice in the film. And then we wanted some strong visuals to go with that,” Well says.
Interspersed throughout the film is an animated, stop-motion version of Beach — dressed in shorts and a safari hat while holding a cigar in one hand and a drink in another.
An animated, stop-motion version of Donn Beach is featured in “The Donn of Tiki.” Photo courtesy of Alex Lamb and Max Well.
“The man Donn Beach — he was born Ernest Raymond Gantt. Totally different. But he transformed into this character … and he played that part for many decades.”
Life took Beach across the globe, and he experienced the ups and downs of business ventures across the U.S., military service during World War II, and even three marriages.
He met his third wife, Phoebe, late in life. In an interview, she described her husband as having mixed feelings about his tiki culture and how it evolved over the years since his Hollywood bar opened.
“[Beach] had this incredible attention to detail and authenticity. This is a guy who was having fresh leis flown in from Hawaii to Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s. He didn’t have to do that,” Lamb says. “Nobody would have known the difference. But to Donn, the details were really, really important.”
Lamb says that over the decades, tiki moved away from the authenticity and instead, “it was an umbrella in your drink and a plastic lei around your neck. That would have pained him to see. And I think we’ve come full circle now. There are a lot of new bars which care very deeply about the recipes. And they’re much, much more aware of the art and artifacts that are on display and the history of the Indigenous people.”
An archival photo of Donn Beach. Photo courtesy of Alex Lamb and Max Well.
Threadworms, which are a type of parasitic nematode, spend a lot of time crawling around on human skin, poking and prodding to find the best place for entry before burrowing in. But disrupting a particular dopamine-sensing pathway causes them to lose interest, UCLA neurobiologists said in a new paper published in Nature Communications.
In humans, dopamine is associated with pleasure and reward. In parasitic worms, the same molecule is associated with the drive to penetrate skin. Without dopamine signaling, the worms still crawl on the skin’s surface but rarely attempt to burrow into the skin. The researchers believe a topical preparation that disrupts this dopamine pathway could prevent infection and be used similarly to the way that DEET mosquito sprays prevent mosquito bites.
Globally, over 600 million people are infected with the skin-penetrating threadworm, Strongyloides stercoralis, mostly in tropical and subtropical regions with poor sanitation infrastructure. The worm is excreted from an infected host in feces and then enters the ground to wait for a new host. When a dog or human walks over or touches the infested ground, the worm, which is about half the size of a pencil tip at this stage (0.5 mm), enters the host through the skin to complete a complicated life cycle and establish an infection, which can cause serious illness for the host.
What researchers needed to know about nematodes
Before we started this, the worms were known to go into the skin headfirst. But beyond that, basically nothing was known about the behaviors that they execute to allow them to get into the skin.”
Elissa Hallem, corresponding author, UCLA professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics
Hallem studies the sensory pathways in the threadworm that help it move through its life cycle and enable it to find and infect hosts. Earlier this year, her lab discovered that the nematodes respond differently to carbon dioxide at different stages in their life cycle, which could help scientists find ways to prevent or cure infections by targeting the CO2-sensing pathway.
To study behaviors that help the worms penetrate skin, UCLA postdoctoral researcher Ruhi Patel put them on samples of rat skin and human skin and recorded what they did through a microscope. The nematodes had undergone genetic manipulation to make them fluorescent, which was essential for being able to visualize the otherwise translucent worms on the skin surface.
How the nematodes reacted
Patel found that the worms penetrated rat skin very quickly, but they spent up to 10 minutes exploring human skin to find just the right spot before burrowing in. When Patel repeated the experiment with a closely related species of rat-parasitic nematode, she found that it penetrated both human and rat skin but was less effective on human skin, penetrating it only 40% of the time. This suggests that although both types of parasitic worms can penetrate host and non-host skin, they have behaviors specific to host skin that improve their chances of successfully entering it.
“It seems like some parts of the human skin are easier for them to get into than others, and it looks like they’re kind of sampling the skin surface, trying to find a spot where they can get in more easily,” said Patel. “Without these skin-probing behaviors, the parasites are less successful at entering the skin.”
When the researchers edited the S. stercoralis genome to disrupt the gene encoding a specific ion channel called TRP-4, which functions in the neurons that release dopamine, the threadworms almost entirely failed to penetrate the skin. The TRP-4 channel is found not only in threadworms but also in hookworms, another skin-penetrating human-parasitic nematode that is common in parts of the United States. However, the TRP-4 channel is absent in humans.
Based on their findings, the researchers now posit that blocking the function of the TRP-4 channel could be an important mechanism for nematode control. Since humans lack this channel, there would be a very low risk to our own dopamine-sensing pathway. The researchers hope that topical creams or lotions that block TRP-4 or other components of the nematode dopamine-sensing pathway could prevent infections before they even get started.
Hallem is a MacArthur Fellow, and her lab has been funded entirely by National Institutes of Health grants that have now been suspended.
“All of the research in my lab was funded by the NIH, and Dr. Patel also had an individual postdoctoral fellowship from NIH that supported her salary. Without NIH funding, there is no way for us to continue this research or even keep our nematode strains alive. The impact of the grant suspensions has been truly devastating,” said Hallem.
Source:
University of California – Los Angeles
Journal reference:
Patel, R., et al. (2025). Dopamine signaling drives skin invasion by human-infective nematodes. Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-62517-z.
Yiming Liu, partner in charge of Cooley’s Shanghai office, was quoted in Asian Legal Business about the resurgence of China’s innovative pharmaceutical sector. Liu emphasized structural shifts in the industry, noting that Chinese biotech companies now possess globally competitive assets, and highlighted the crucial role of lawyers in navigating complex transactions and ensuring compliance.
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Seth Rogen recently appeared on “Watch What Happens Live” and wrestled with the prospect of making a sequel to “The Pineapple Express,” his beloved 2008 stoner comedy that grossed more than $100 million at the worldwide box office.
“Maybe,” Rogen said when asked about making a sequel. “We can probably sell it to streaming or something… There could be [big demand]. You never know. I don’t know. I’m not great with sequels. It’s not where my mind goes, but maybe one day.”
Rogen has avoided making sequels to a majority of his most iconic comedies, including “Superbad.” However, there was a time when he considered making “The Pineapple Express 2.” Rogen said on “The Howard Stern Show” years ago that he pitched a stoner comedy sequel but Sony Pictures wasn’t interested, most likely due to budget concerns.
“We tried to make one and thanks to the Sony hack you can actually find the email when Sony decided to kill the movie and not make it,” Rogen revealed at the time. “It was something we were very open to several years ago, but Sony was not that interested in it… I think we probably wanted too much money. Studios, they don’t like giving away money.”
Rogen’s comment was more or less confirmed by a report from The Daily Beast, which leaked emails between “Pineapple Express” producer Judd Apatow and former Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal that showed their sequel discussions. The report mentioned that Apatow allegedly wanted a $50 million budget for a sequel (nearly double the reported budget for the original movie), but Sony executives demanded it be kept at $45 million. Discussion for the sequel fizzled out after that.
“The Pineapple Express,” directed by David Gordon Green from a script by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, stars Rogen as a process server and James Franco as his marijuana dealer. The two get stoned and witness a murder, prompting them to flee hitmen and corrupt police officers. Danny McBride, Gary Cole and Rosie Perez round out the cast.
Whether or not a “Pineapple Express” sequel gets made could also depend on Rogen and Franco, former collaborators who appear to be no longer friends. Franco told Variety last year that their friendship is definitively over. Rogen told The Sunday Times in 2021 that he did not plan to work with Franco again after sexual misconduct allegations made against Franco.
“No. I haven’t talked to Seth. I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over,” Franco told Variety in October 2024. “And not for lack of trying. I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me.”
When asked earlier this year by Esquire about Franco’s comment and how it felt “to have something so personal become so public,” Rogen did not want to discuss the topic outside of saying: “Honestly, I absorb so little media that it really wasn’t on my radar.”
Rogen and Franco got their starts together as cast members on NBC’s short-lived cult classic “Freaks and Geeks.” They went on to star opposite one another in classic comedies such as “Pineapple Express” and “This Is the End.” Rogen produced and starred in Franco’s 2017 directorial effort “The Disaster Artist,” which ended up being their final project together.
Promising New Pathways for Manipulating Excitons and Light Can Benefit Optoelectronics
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Hyperbolic region in chromium sulfur bromide (CrSBr): a) This schematic shows the metallized tapping tip of a scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope illuminated by free-space light with momentum k0. The tip activates waveguide modes that couple to excitons in CrSBr. b) Dielectric functions show that in the orange band (hyperbolic region) they have opposite signs along the a and b axis.
The ability to move electron-hole pairs—called excitons—in desired directions is important for generating electricity and creating fuels. This happens naturally in photosynthesis, making it a source of inspiration to researchers innovating optoelectronic devices.
Strong coupling between light and excitons generates bosonic quasiparticles called polaritons that express unique properties that positively affect device performance.
Researchers observed steady-state hyperbolic exciton polaritons (HEPs)—exotic kinds of exciton polaritons with attractive properties—in the van der Waals magnet, chromium sulfide bromide (CrSBr).
They detailed their observations in “Hyperbolic exciton polaritons in a van der Waals magnet,” published in Nature Communications. NREL researchers devised the theoretical framework to explain the experiments performed at Columbia University. Researchers at King’s College London, the University of Washington, the Flatiron Institute, and Radboud University were also involved in the collaboration.
NREL’s Mark van Schilfgaarde, chief theorist and coauthor on this study, said, “Polaritons can arise when coupling between confined light and matter becomes strong. Usually, light-matter interaction is weak, and the light merely acts to perturb the material and change its quantum state. When it is strong, the light and matter can become entangled and form a new state containing both. These states—polaritons—have long been established, but what is new in this study is the observations of polaritons in a hyperbolic system. Exotic new modes called hyperbolic exciton polaritons (HEPs) have been predicted, and this study presents an experimental realization of them.”
Innovation and optimization of optoelectronic and photovoltaic devices such as light emitting diodes, solar cells, X-ray detectors, and other sensors are of interest to researchers and developers working toward better energy efficiency. Better performance of devices where conversion between matter and light is at the heart of their operation uses the available energy more efficiently and leads to higher sensitivities.
“Our study shows promising new pathways to manipulate excitons and light, which can improve optoelectronic device operation, including routes to magnetic, nonlocal, and quantum polaritonics,” van Schilfgaarde said.
Enabling Hyperbolic Exciton Polariton Imaging
Researchers exploited the unique geometry of semiconductors to finally image HEPs, which have been technically elusive. Microcavities—reflective mirrors that ensure coupling—in semiconductors are effective at trapping and stabilizing light to achieve exciton polaritons. Slabs of van der Waals semiconductors allow excitons in the semiconductor to strongly interact with light. Such geometry lends itself to nano-optical techniques and/or nanoscale imaging.
To achieve this strong coupling, cryogenic temperatures are needed in most van der Waals materials. Researchers developed a cryogenic near-infrared, near-field microscope to enable HEP imaging in the van der Waals semiconductor, CrSBr. This van der Waals material is unique because excitons exhibit both strong oscillator strength, which is the mechanism that enables electrons to be absorbed and emitted, and small scattering rates, which limit the lifetime.
“This was the first time a cryogenic near-infrared, near-field microscope was used in a published study,” said Frank Ruta, a Ph.D. student at Columbia University and coauthor on the paper. “We used near-infrared light in these experiments, which has a shorter wavelength than midinfrared light—making alignment of optics more challenging. Alignment at low temperature in an ultrahigh vacuum presents even more difficulties. These experimental conditions are necessary to observe HEPs, however, as CrSBr only becomes hyperbolic at low temperature and in the near infrared.”
Van Schilfgaarde and NREL computational science researcher Swagata Acharya built a robust, parameter-free theoretical framework for magnets both in their ordered and disordered variants—an approach that represents a step change in exploring the role of the order-disorder transition in magnetic excitons. This model can describe the excitons of a magnet both above and below a critical temperature called the Néel temperature. This is important because when the spins disorder above the Néel temperature, the excitons become darker—and many of the fundamental properties of HEPs depend on how bright these excitons are.
“We established a physical picture showing that the exciton’s brightness is influenced by the Néel temperature,” Acharya said. “This principle should be valid for a large class of van der Waals magnets and is not confined to CrSBr only.”
Observing Hyperbolic Exciton Polaritons at the Nanoscale
The team verified, through their cryogenic, near-infrared, near-field microscope, that strong coupling between excitons and polaritons occurs directionally in CrSBr at room temperature. The researchers proposed that this magneto-electronic coupling is partly responsible for the hyperbolicity in CrSBr (although this hyperbolicity only occurs at low temperature).
In the imaging experiment, the research team varied the temperature, microcrystal thickness, and energy dependence of subdiffractional fringes (where waves spread around and away from obstacles) to uncover the properties of HEPs.
“HEPs can confine light in semiconductors to spatial dimensions below conventional diffraction limits, allowing us to miniaturize optoelectronic excitonic devices beyond the limits that light normally imposes on us,” Ruta said. “However, HEPs observed in CrSBr are still far too lossy to be practical. The challenge for researchers now is to figure out how to extend HEP lifetimes. Incorporating CrSBr into a resonant cavity is a promising route, or we may search for materials with even stronger exciton resonances.”
“This manuscript also characterized, for the first time, how spin disorder modifies excitons, without recourse to model assumptions,” van Schilfgaarde said. “Having results grounded in a rigorous theory made it possible to interpret the experiment in terms of a simple picture, where magnetic order delocalizes the excitons and helps push CrSBr into the hyperbolic transition.”
Learn more about Basic Energy Sciences at NREL and about the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science bBasic Energy Sciences Program. Read “Hyperbolic Exciton Polaritons in a van der Waals Magnet” in Nature Communications.
Dr. Compton J. Tucker – a senior researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) – joins 149 newly elected members to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) – see Photo. NAS is one of the highest honors in American science. Compton gave a virtual presentation at GSFC on July 21, 2025, in which he showed highlights from his 50 years of research and reflected on the honor of being selected as an NAS fellow. He admitted that he was surprised upon learning of his election in April 2025 – despite his prestigious career.
In some ways this award brings Compton’s career full circle. He first came to GSFC as a NAS postdoc in 1975 after having earned his Bachelor’s of Science degree at Colorado State University (CSU) in 1969. He followed with his Master’s of Science degree and Ph.D. from CSU’s College of Forestry in 1973 and 1975 respectively. Two years later, he joined NASA as a civil servant. After a prestigious 48 years of public service, Compton has decided to retire in March 2025.
Compton is a well-known pioneer in the field of satellite-based environmental analysis, using data from various U.S. Geological Survey–NASA Landsat missions and from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instrument, the prototype of which launched aboard the Television Infrared Observation Satellite–N (TIROS-N) in 1978, with launches continuing on NOAA and European polar orbiting satellites throughout the next 40 years. The last two AVHRR instruments, which launched on the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites’ (EUMETSAT) Meteorological Operational satellites (METOP–B and -C) in 2012 and 2018 respectively, are still operational today.
In his GSFC presentation, Compton described how, in the course of doing their research, he and his colleague(s) realized the original plans for AVHRR resulted in Channel 1 and 2 overlapping one another. In short, he explained that his input helped persuade NOAA management to change the design for Channel 1 of AVHRR – beginning with NOAA-7. It is fair to say that this change had a lasting impact, with 16 more AVHRR instruments (with slight modifications over time) launched over the next four decades.
Compton’s research has focused on global photosynthesis on land (e.g., grass-dominated savannas), determined land cover (i.e., forest fragmentation, deforestation, and forest condition), monitored droughts and food security, and evaluated ecologically coupled disease outbreaks. From 2005 to 2010, he was the co-chair of two Interagency Working Groups for Observations and Land Use and Land Cover Change. Compton was active in NASA’s Space Archaeology Program, participating in ground-based radar and magnetic surveys in Turkey, particularly at Troy, the Granicus River Valley, and Gordion. Over the course of his 50-year career, he has authored or co-authored more than 400 scholarly articles that have appeared in scientific journals – and in his presentation he hinted that more might be in store after retirement.
Compton has received numerous scientific awards and honors. He was elected to a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2009 and to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2015. He received the Senior Executive Service Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Service (2017), the Vega Medal from the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography (2014), the Galathea Medal from the Royal Danish Geographical Society (2004), the William T. Pecora Award from the U.S. Geological Survey (1997), the Michael Collins Trophy for Current Achievement from the National Air and Space Museum (1993), the Henry Shaw Medal from the Missouri Botanical Garden (1992), and the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal from NASA (1987).
Compton enjoyed sharing his knowledge with the next generation of scientists. He served as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland (1994–2024) and a consulting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology (2005–2024).
Congratulations to Compton on earning this prestigious – and well-earned – recognition from NAS. Best wishes to him in whatever is next on his journey.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and – with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine – provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.
Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) have shown that 18FDG-PET, an imaging technique widely used to study other conditions, can also be used to monitor atherosclerosis by measuring cellular metabolism within arterial plaques. The findings, published in Science Translational Medicine, could improve the clinical management of this disease and accelerate the development of new treatments.
Atherosclerosis-the underlying cause of most heart attacks and strokes-is a silent disease that progresses over many years without symptoms. The disease is characterized by the accumulation of fatty deposits, cells, and other materials in the walls of arteries, where they reduce blood flow and can eventually rupture, triggering serious cardiovascular events. While treatments are available to slow disease progression, it is still difficult to determine if a treatment is working in individual patients.
18FDG-PET (fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography) is a nuclear imaging technique that uses a radioactively labeled glucose analog to detect tissue metabolic activity.
The new study demonstrates that the 18FDG-PET signal reflects the metabolic activity of atherosclerotic plaques, rather than merely indicating inflammation, as was previously believed.
To reach this conclusion, the research team developed an experimental model of advanced atherosclerosis in genetically modified animals and was able to partially reverse disease progression using a diet and drug-based intervention similar to strategies used in clinical care.
As the disease regressed, the 18FDG-PET signal declined in parallel with the reduced expression of genes linked to glucose metabolism in various plaque cell types, including macrophages, lymphocytes, and smooth muscle cells.
“The 18FDG-PET signal reflects the activity level of the cells within atherosclerotic lesions and can therefore serve as a sensitive tool for evaluating treatment efficacy and disease progression risk,” explains CNIC researcher Paula Nogales, lead author of the study together with Jacob Bentzon, of Aarhus University (Denmark) and head of the Experimental Pathology of Atherosclerosis group at the CNIC.
This discovery opens the door to using a widely available hospital imaging technique to improve clinical monitoring of atherosclerosis and speed the development of new therapies for this silent but potentially deadly disease.
The study received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme; the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (MEIC), with co-funding from the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER); the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, with FEDER/EU co-funding; the Madrid regional government; and the “la Caixa” Foundation (AtheroConvergence).
Source:
Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (F.S.P.)
Journal reference:
Nogales, P., et al. (2025) Atherosclerotic Disease Activity is Associated with Glycolytic Enzyme Expression Across Multiple Cell Types and is Trackable by FDG-PET. Science Translational Medicine. doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.ado6467.
