The following transcript has been edited for clarity.

Patricio G. Schlottmann, MD: Here we are in southern Patagonia, in Ushuaia, at the very end of the world at the southern tip of South America. We are with one of our international guests and speakers for the meeting, Aaron Nagiel, MD, PhD. I have two questions for you. The first question: How are the society and the city treating you so far?

Aaron Nagiel, MD, PhD: It’s been amazing. It’s magical to be in a place like this—so unique and with wonderful, warm people from Argentina and around the world.

Dr. Schlottmann: You’re going to give several talks during the meeting. One of them is about gene treatments for patients with inherited retinal diseases (IRDs). What can you tell us about this?

Dr. Nagiel: It’s a really exciting time. As you know, it’s been a while since we had our first FDA-approved gene therapy (Luxturna; Spark Therapeutics) in 2017. We’ve had a dry spell since then, but it’s really exciting to see how many trials are ongoing, with one potential approval for Beacon Therapeutics [laru-zova for X-linked retinitis pigmentosa caused by RPGR mutations] and many others ongoing. It gives us more energy and movement to proceed forward and hopefully have more therapies.

Dr. Schlottmann: That is great news. These are patients that are in great need. We have many of those here because of the genetic variability and diversity that we have, genetic-wise. So that will be very, very useful. We’re looking forward to your talks and having more information regarding the treatments that we can give our patients. Thank you. RP