Overview
- In a new interview, Sammy Basso’s parents say they received 14 previously unknown letters the day after his death, including guidance for his ceremony and messages to family, friends and research colleagues.
- They recount that Basso wrote the letters in 2017 before a high‑risk heart operation, described by ANSA as the first performed on a progeria patient, after doctors warned survival was essentially a coin flip.
- The parents report that Basso’s collaborators in Boston are developing a DNA‑editing approach aimed at correcting the single‑letter mutation that causes progeria, a project they say continues.
- The family’s association dedicated to progeria advocacy and research fundraising remains active, while the parents downplay calls for beatification, saying such judgments are up to God.
- Basso, a biologist who earned degrees in Natural Sciences and Molecular Biology at the University of Padua, died on October 5, 2024 at age 28 after a sudden medical episode despite emergency attempts to revive him.