In this week's episode, Blood editor Dr. Laurie Sehn interviews Drs. Shengwen Calvin Li and Hrishi Krishna Srinagesh on their latest articles published in Blood. Dr. Li discusses "Single-cell profiling of ANKRD26 thrombocytopenia reveals progenitor expansion and polyploid apoptosis via JUNB-p21". The study identifies reproducible abnormalities in progenitor expansion and increased apoptosis of polyploid megakaryocytes, and they propose a novel mechanism in which centrosomal over-expression of ANKRD26 drives polyploid megakaryocyte apoptosis through JUNB-mediated induction of p21 transcription. Dr. Srinagesh discusses "Blinatumomab nonresponse correlates with poor survival after brexucabtagene autoleucel in B-cell ALL" in which data collected by the Real-World Outcomes Collaborative of CAR-T in Adult ALL consortium showed that prior nonresponse to blinatumomab was associated with inferior survival after brexucabtagene in comparison to blinatumomab-naïve patients. Early CAR-T responses were uniformly high regardless of prior exposure or response. This highlights that resistance to blinatumomab may identify patients at higher risk of post–CAR T relapse despite excellent initial responses.

In this week's episode, Blood podcast editor Laurie Sehn interviews Drs. Edward Cliff on his latest research published in volume 147 issue 14 of Blood. Dr. Cliff discusses "Global access to commercial CAR T-cell therapies: a cross-sectional study of health technology assessment across the G20 countries" which maps the mismatch between innovation and implementation across high-income and selected-upper-middle-income countries for US Food and Drug Administration–approved products and indications.

In this week's episode, Blood podcast editor Dr. James Griffin interviews authors Drs. Steffen Boettcher and Robert Zeiser on their recent publications in Blood. Dr. Boettcher discusses "Bone marrow failure, somatic rescue by p53 inactivation, and enhanced leukemogenesis in germ line ERCC6L2 disease", which provides insights to disease evolution by demonstrating that p53 loss can rescue BMF phenotypes caused by biallelic mutations in ERCC6L2, but at the cost of profound genome instability, increasing DNA damage and leading to the onset of aggressive erythroid leukemia. Dr. Zeiser discusses "Gastrin for the treatment of acute graft-versus-host-disease of the stomach", which delineates the protective role of gastrin in aGVHD of the stomach in mice and patients and provides a rationale for therapeutic use of pentagastrin in a clinical trial for patients with aGVHD.