A daily-updated life-science feed prioritizing spatial multi-omics and spatial biology, with synthetic biology, cancer, AI-driven biology, immunology, organoids, organ-on-a-chip, and host–pathogen research — pulled automatically from Nature, Cell, Science, Cancer Discovery, bioRxiv, and arXiv.
140 papers from the last 14 days · last updated 4 Nov 2026, 18:31 UTC
Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026-10-22
· 9 media mentions
Focus: Sequential diagnosis with language models.
We explored the capabilities of frontier language models in sequential diagnosis, a diagnostic paradigm that captures the iterative nature of clinical reasoning.
Given a brief clinical presentation, clinicians selectively acquired information to reach a diagnosis, enabling assessment of diagnostic accuracy and workup cost.
Cell · 2026-10-23
· 4 media mentions
· 1 Bluesky post
Focus: Perforin triggers iron-induced mitochondrial damage to drive ferroptosis and anti-tumor immunity.
Cytotoxic CD8 + T cells and natural killer cells are critical effectors of anti-tumor immunity.
Cytotoxic lymphocytes eliminate tumor cells by releasing perforin (Prf1), a pore-forming protein that enables granzymes (Gzms) to enter target cells and trigger both caspase-dependent and -independent cell death.
Focus: Tandem repeat variation shapes immune cell type-specific gene expression.
Tandem repeats (TRs)-highly polymorphic, repetitive sequences across the human genome-are important regulators of gene expression but remain underexplored due to challenges in accurate genotyping and analysis1.
Here we generate whole-genome and single-cell RNA sequencing from more than 5.4 million blood-derived cells across 1,925 individuals in two cohorts2, and perform meta-analysis to characteri.
Focus: SWI/SNF complexes shape 3D chromatin architecture through CTCF and cohesin.
The BAF (also known as mammalian SWI/SNF) chromatin remodelling complexes are essential regulators of nucleosome positioning and transcription factor binding1,2.
Loss-of-function (LOF) mutations in genes encoding components of the BAF complexes are among the most frequent across cancer types3.
Focus: Rare and common genetic variants shape single-cell immune gene expression.
Understanding the genetic basis of gene expression can shed light on the regulatory mechanisms underlying complex traits and diseases1,2.
Single-cell-resolved measures of RNA levels and single-cell expression quantitative trait loci have revealed genetic regulation that drives cell states and types across diverse tissues3.
Focus: Genetic variants shape single-cell chromatin accessibility and disease risk.
Understanding how genetic variation shapes gene regulation at single-cell resolution is crucial for elucidating complex disease mechanisms1, but has been limited by the lack of large-scale single-cell multi-omics…
Here we present single-cell assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with sequencing of 3.5 million peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 1,042 donors with matched whole-geno.
Focus: T and B cells recognize splicing-derived neutrophil neoantigens in lupus.
Proteome diversity is generated through alternative mRNA splicing1.
In tumours, mis-spliced transcripts that contain intronic sequences, skipped exons or noncanonical donor/acceptor splice junctions resulting in frameshifts are often translated into neoantigens that drive anti-tumour immunity2,3.
Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026-10-29
· 2 media mentions
· 1 Bluesky post
Focus: Stimulated protein degradation to promote mitochondrial function and neuronal survival.
Targeted protein degradation is a promising modality to treat cancer or inflammation, but whether it can provide a similar benefit for disorders caused by pervasive protein dysregulation is…
We describe stimulated protein degradation (SPD) as a strategy that leverages agonists of stress-responsive E3 ubiquitin ligases to simultaneously eliminate multiple pathogenic factors.
Updated daily from published papers in the feed; preprints are excluded. Candidates come from the last 15 days and are ranked using recent Google News coverage plus 7-day public Bluesky activity and citation growth reported by Europe PMC, with spatial biology prioritized. X and LinkedIn are not counted because reliable public paper-level data are unavailable. Attention indicates current interest, not research quality.
Sentis, I., Cebria-Xart, A., Rovira, Q., Melon-Ardanaz, E., Rodriguez Hernandez, C. J., Morabito, S., Caballe, A., Ruano, I., Urpi, A., Caballero, M., Garcia...
Focus: MET inhibition exploits conserved regulatory dependencies in malignant rhabdoid tumors.
Malignant rhabdoid tumors (MRTs) are lethal, yet genomically simple childhood cancers characterised by universal SWI/SNF dysregulation.
Despite this shared molecular framework, the regulatory programs sustaining MRTs and how they wire actionable dependencies, remain poorly defined.
Focus: scPCIP: cross-species annotation of plant cell types with conserved gene programs.
Single-cell atlases now cover many plant species and organs, yet their cell types are still annotated with marker genes that often fail to transfer between species.
Here we show that plant cell identities are captured by gene programs conserved across species.
Liang, G., Joseph, K. N., Sim, K., Kuchumov, V., Tan, Z., Xu, X., Ding, F.
Focus: Single-probe, high-yield spatial mapping of diverse short RNA motifs.
Spatial transcriptomics has revolutionized our understanding of RNA biology.
Hybridization-based methods map mRNA transcripts by tiling multiple labeled probes along each molecule to generate a visible fluorescent signal, restricting applicability to long transcripts.
Turhan, B., Lee, H., Liu, D., Le, A., Ghosh, A., Nandi, D., Mazumder, R., Engreitz, J. M., Jin, X., Huangfu, D., Dey, K. K.
Focus: Perturbation-induced gene programs map the hidden regulatory architecture of complex diseases.
Steady-state molecular profiles incompletely capture the regulatory programs through which genetic variation influences complex disease, particularly programs that emerge only when cells are perturbed.
Here, we introduce Perturbscape, a computational framework that learns multiscale gene programs for individual perturbations in a CRISPR Perturb-seq screen using linear and nonlinear contrastive app.
Focus: A biomimetic SPARC platform coupling adaptor recruitment and BRS-Lck condensation for enhanced NK/T cell combination therapy.
Immune cell engineering has proven to be a promising therapeutic strategy for cancers and autoimmune diseases.
Compared to classical CAR therapies, engineered T cells with modified TCRs (such as STAR-T and TRuC-T) exhibit lower tonic signaling and higher persistence.
Challa, A. K., Ramanadham, S., Nair, R., Gurusamy, A., Folmar, J. R., Huynh, T. Y. L., Ahamed, A., Chowdarapu, S.
Focus: An integrated workflow for dual-guide CRISPR-Cas9 targeting and amplicon-based genotyping of Pla2g6 in primary mouse bone marrow-derived macrophages.
CRISPR-Cas9 editing in primary bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMD-M{phi}s) requires coordinated assessment of cellular morphology, target modification, and sequence-level editing outcomes.
We describe a workflow for dual-guide targeting of murine Pla2g6 that integrates guide design, ribonucleoprotein nucleofection, PCR-heteroduplex mobility analysis (PCR-HMA), and targeted amplicon sequencing.
Maucourt, F., Lewis, C., Kazakov, A., Murray, I., Jacobs-Sera, D., Deutschbauer, A. M., Wetzel, K. S., Niederweis, M., Hatfull, G. F., Mutalik, V. K.
Focus: The phage-host interaction landscape of Mycobacterium smegmatis.
Bacteriophages are highly specific predators of bacterial hosts, but the molecular mechanisms governing their entry across the complex mycobacterial cell envelope remain poorly defined.
Utilizing a genome-wide CRISPR interference library in the model organism Mycobacterium smegmatis against a phylogenetically representative collection of 70 mycobacteriophages, and subsequent efficiency of plating.
Sarkar, A., Gallo, M. C., Bell, J. A., Mayfield, C. K., Ball, J. R., Hernandez, F., Lechtholz-Zey, E., Shelby, T., Sugiyama, O., Evseenko, D., Lieberman, J. R.
Focus: Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Reveals Distinct Cellular and Molecular Features of Steroid-Induced Osteonecrosis of the Femoral Head Compared to Alcohol-Induced Osteonecrosis and Hip Osteoarthritis.
Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) remains a devastating complication of glucocorticoid therapy and alcohol abuse, yet the pathophysiology is poorly understood.
Using single-cell RNA sequencing, we analyzed femoral head specimens from patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty due to steroid-induced ONFH, alcohol-induced ONFH, or hip osteoarthritis (OA).
Focus: Predicting single-molecule chromatin distribution from DNA sequence.
Genome regulation unfolds through dynamic and stochastic single-molecule events.
Deep learning models that read gene regulatory activities from DNA sequences have markedly advanced our ability to predict cell-population-level averages.
Focus: Adaptation of breast cancer cells to serum-free defined medium reveals changes in proliferation, adhesion, and lipid metabolism.
Cancer cell metabolic dependencies are strongly influenced by nutrient availability, yet conventional culture conditions contain non-physiological nutrient concentrations and poorly defined serum components that may obscure metabolic vulnerabilities.
Here, we investigated the adaptation of three breast cancer cell lines to physiologically relevant, serum-free defined medium (DM).
Perticari, G., DeMartino, J., Fumagalli, A., Ayyildiz, D., Doulkeridou, S., Kester, L., Kooiman, J., Margaritis, T., Drost, J.
Focus: Lineage tracing in rhabdoid tumor organoids and orthotopic xenografts reveals convergent transcriptional states.
Malignant rhabdoid tumors (MRTs) are aggressive pediatric malignancies driven by loss of a single SWI/SNF subunit in an otherwise near-silent genome, yet they display extensive transcriptional heterogeneity.
Whether this heterogeneity reflects the outgrowth of transcriptionally distinct clones, or states adopted independently of lineage, is unknown.
Nicolescu, S. D., Matheux, A., Grimaldi, M., Vie, N., Romero, R., Robin, M., Fabbrizio, E., Boulahtouf, A., Toucheboeuf, J., Gudin-de-Vallerin, A., Boissiere...
Focus: The Pregnane X Receptor (PXR) contributes to phenotypic plasticity and modulates the sensitivity to targeted therapies in melanoma.
The challenge in treating advanced metastatic melanoma lies in the development of therapeutic resistance and the risk of recurrence.
Understanding the mechanisms underlying tumor adaptation to treatment is therefore crucial, as they can directly influence therapeutic efficacy.
Heinzelman, P., Nageeb, G. R., Choi, J., Liu, J., Lee, S. Y., Romero, P. A., Lim, M.
Focus: Glioblastoma model mouse rescue from mortality by brain-targeted catalytically-enhanced angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 mutant-antibody fusion protein.
We have discovered that an engineered angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2)-brain-targeted antibody fusion protein, referred to as ACE2dm-s1, improves survival of CT-2A xenograft glioblastoma (GBM) model mice when administered…
Particularly striking about these survival results is that prior efforts that used losartan, a small.
Salvador-Barbero, B., Reed, E. K., Ruiz-Palacios, D., Asher, R., Pedraza-Arevalo, S., Ibanez-Costa, A., Acedo, P., Castano, J. P., Hogan, C.
Focus: Early Progression Cells mark a stem-like state associated with pancreatic cancer initiation and progression.
Pancreatic cancer is deemed to progress from microscopic pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanINs).
However, low grade PanINs are frequently detected in the general population without presentation or increased risk of developing cancer, suggesting that many PanINs never progress to tumours.
Tilton, T., Park, Y. M., Zhu, H., Paolillo, J., Zhang, C., Lin, D.-C.
Focus: MCT4-Associated Lactate Export Defines Myeloid Metabolic Reprogramming during Head and Neck Cancer Progression.
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) development is accompanied by metabolic remodeling of the tumor microenvironment, yet how metabolic programs evolve across specific cell populations during tumor…
We integrated single-cell RNA-sequencing data from five HNSCC cohorts comprising 645,351 cells from 114 patients and inferred metabolic flux using single.
Velasco-Jimenez, N., SAnchez-SAnchez, R., Huertas-Lopez, A., Peres-Rubio, C., Huertas-Lopez, F., Benavides, J., Gutierrez-Exposito, D., Ceron, J. J., Horcajo...
Focus: Prediction of early Toxoplasma gondii infection during pregnancy combining host biomarkers and machine learning.
Toxoplasma gondii is a major cause of reproductive failure and severe gestational complications in both humans and small ruminants and early diagnosis is essential to prevent adverse outcomes.
In sheep, congenital toxoplasmosis can trigger early fetal death (EFD) during the acute phase of the infection (days 7-14 post-infection) when conventional diagnosis methods are ineffective.
Han, S., Li, M., Gurr, G. M., Vasseur, L., You, M., Xia, X.
Focus: Arginine activates a conserved sphingolipid defense axis against infection.
Metabolism is generally viewed as supporting immune responses rather than acting as a direct mediator of host defense.
Here, we show that arginine directly activates the sphingolipid metabolic pathway in Plutella xylostella, promoting ceramide accumulation and consequently exerting antibacterial effects.
Hung, J., Silveria-Davies, S., Vickery, J., Maker, B. G., Mikolajczyk, C., Axe, D. S., Weist, B. M., Elias, J. E., DuPage, M.
Focus: MHCII+ cancer-associated fibroblasts promote antitumor immunity in pancreatic cancer.
The functions of major histocompatibility complex class II molecule-expressing cancer-associated fibroblasts (MHCII+CAFs) in pancreatic cancer remain controversial.
MHCII+CAFs are primarily described as immunosuppressive, as MHCII allows for direct interaction with, and support of, regulatory T cells (Tregs).
Gower, M. S., Kleberg, L., Silva, C. S., Gilleron, M., Nigou, J., Correia-Neves, M., Sundling, C., Kallenius, G.
Focus: PIM6 Induces Tolerance and Confers Protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Primary Macrophages.
Glycolipids are major components of the mycobacterial cell envelope and play critical roles in host-pathogen interactions.
Here we investigate the capacity of the mycobacterial glycolipid phosphatidyl-myo-inositol hexamannosides (PIM6) to modulate innate responsiveness in naive primary human monocytes and monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs).
Worth, C. S., Conforti, J. M., Nambiar, A. M., Malone, J., Budhathoki, R., Ziegler, A. M., Polavarapu, K., Lilley, H., Climer, L., Simmons, D. D., Kelber, J....
Focus: KDM6A is enzymatically active at the Golgi apparatus where it is necessary for maintenance of Golgi apparatus morphology.
KDM6A and KDM6B, lysine demethylases, play a central role in regulation of transcription through their demethylation activity towards H3K27me3 and have also been shown to be dynamically regulated…
In particular, KDM6A has been implicated in a variety of malignancies and is frequently mutated in cancers including those in kidney, bladder, colorectal, and.
Chassonnery, P., Paupert, J., Lorsignol, A., Severac, C., Ousset, M., Casteilla, L., Peurichard, D.
Focus: Emergence and robustness of 3D complex tissue architectures from simple physical forces.
Although at central stake in biology and biological engineering, our understanding of how biological tissues acquire their architectures during morphogenesis and which mechanisms have been selected through evolution…
Using adipose tissue as a biological model, we build a 3D mathematical model with simple mechanical rules between cells and fibers, and show that the model reproduces,.
Moene, C. J. I., Eder, M., Dauban, L., Yanez-Cuna, J. O., Kocher, A. A., Eschauzier, L., Verkuilen, M., Franceschini-Santos, V. H., van Steensel, B.
Focus: Local chromatin, 3D genome folding and transposon cargo shape Sleeping Beauty transposition.
The cut-and-paste DNA transposon Sleeping Beauty (SB) is widely used for genome engineering, mutagenesis and gene delivery.
When mobilized from a genomic donor position ("launch site"), SB preferentially reintegrates locally (< 2 Mb), but factors governing its transposition from genomic sites remain incompletely understood.
Morelli, L., Cretti, S., Michelatti, D., Bressan, D., Scandino, R., Chiacchiera, F., Cittaro, D., Peixoto, T. P., Zippo, A.
Focus: A generative network model reveals hierarchical structural memory guiding post-mitotic 3D genome inheritance.
How three-dimensional (3D) genome organization is reestablished after mitosis to preserve gene regulatory programs and cell identity remains unresolved.
We asked whether mitotic chromosome architecture contributes to cellular memory by preserving structural information while maintaining the flexibility required for cellular adaptation.
Adebiyi, S. O., Goussard, P., De Wet, D. R., Janson, J. T., Jooste, T., Shabangu, A., Dorhoi, A., Bondoc, S., Nekorchuk, M., Chao, M. C., Fortune, S. M., Bus...
Focus: Spatial transcriptomics of pediatric tuberculosis lymph nodes reveals a conserved hypoxia_SPP1 niche.
Pediatric tuberculosis (TB) often presents as primary disease involving the mediastinal lymph nodes.
however, its granuloma microenvironment remains poorly characterized because these population patient tissues are rarely available for study.
Adhikary, B., Zhao, X. O., Shahi, A., Laboy-Figueroa, A. G., Purvis, M. P., Tjoelker, K. K., Huycke, T. R., Banerjee, S., Martin, A. C., Miller, A. L.
Focus: Calcium and actomyosin pulses drive tricellular zipping to remodel epithelial cell-cell junctions and facilitate cell packing.
Epithelial morphogenesis requires coordinated changes in cell geometry, neighbor cell arrangement, and cell packing to generate functional tissue architectures.
However, the spatiotemporal regulation of upstream signals that drive local junctional remodeling in highly proliferative developing epithelial tissues remains unclear.
Focus: ARCADE disentangles cell abundance from continuous transcriptional state in spatial transcriptomics.
Spatial transcriptomics is widely used to infer both cell-type abundance and within-type transcriptional variation, but these signals are difficult to separate in mixed spot-level measurements.
Here, we present ARCADE, a computational framework that addresses two major sources of uncertainty in spatial analysis: unstable single-cell references and entanglement between abundance and cell state.
Schwartz, L., Schlamowitz, J. L., Kuznets-Speck, B., Johnson, C. W., Das, D., Grody, E. I., Bai, T., Sun, H., Senthilkumar, I., Primavera, G., Jung, J., Kuus...
Focus: ExPert infers causal perturbations from cell states across biological and clinical contexts.
Pooled single-cell CRISPR screens have driven substantial effort toward models predicting the response to a perturbation.
We posed the inverse question: which perturbation produced an observed cell state?.
Focus: Quantifying subcellular organization from localization to co-occurrence with InSpace.
Cell identity and function depend not only on molecular abundance, but also on how molecules are organized within cells.
Although spatial transcriptomics now resolves individual RNA molecules within cells, routine computational workflows reduce these measurements to cell-by-gene count matrices, retaining abundance while discarding information about intracellular localization…
Kroehling, L., Spinella, A., Varelas, X., Monti, S.
Focus: Age-based shifts in multicellular community organization and abundance in HPV-Negative Head and Neck Cancer.
Aging represents a fundamental driver of cancer risk and progression, yet the mechanisms by which aging reshapes the tumor microenvironment remain incompletely understood.
To interrogate how aging alters cellular and microenvironmental organization in cancer, we developed an integrated single-cell atlas of HPV-negative head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) encompassing 73…
Biletch, E. B., Herlihy, C. P., Li, L., Kim, E., Krebs, M., Kelly, C. J., Longhi, N. J., Weissenfels, O., Goldberg, H., Brandt, K., Grimm, J. B., Lavis, L. D...
Focus: A unified photosensitizer platform for in situ DNA, RNA, and protein directed proximity labeling.
Cells depend on the spatial organization of proteins, RNA, and DNA into discrete subcellular compartments.
Previous methods have largely centered on measuring spatial organization based on only one of these biomolecular classes at a time.
Oterino-Sogo, S., Mechkouri, N., Garcia-Ruano, D., Groppi, A., Rezvani, H.-R., Nikolski, M.
Focus: SpaceBlocks: an expert-supervised workflow for cohort-level spatial transcriptomics analysis.
Spatial transcriptomics (ST) has become a central tool in tissue biology, with multiple technologies addressing the issue from a different angle.
Each platform imposes its own raw data format conventions, and few workflows address reproducible, scalable, cohort-level analyses while integrating expert-supervised decisions to strengthen computational and biological provenance.
Garcia, C. A., Lee, H.-K., Brusco, F., Hwang, Y.-S., Pereira Lobo, F., Daar, I. O., Yoon, J.
Focus: BSG.S regulates ionocyte radial intercalation and function in the developing Xenopus mucociliary epithelium.
Mucociliary epithelia (MCE) line multiple vertebrate organs, including the mammalian airways, and rely on coordinated interactions among specialized cell types to clear pathogens and maintain epithelial homeostasis.
Proper MCE function requires the appropriate specification and spatial organization of ionocytes, multiciliated cells, secretory cells, and basal cells.
Alice Driessen, Emil Malmsten, Steffen Wolf, Bernd Illing, Isinsu Katircioglu, Adriano Martinelli, Rolf Stahel, Solange Peters, Enriqueta Felip, Sanjay Popat...
Focus: HistoTx: Early fusion of H&E images and spatial transcriptomics at varying spatial transcriptomics resolution with self-supervised learning.
Spatial transcriptomics maps gene expression across tissue sections and, when integrated with whole slide images, jointly captures both morphological architecture and molecular activity to provide a rich, multimodal…
ML approaches combining spatial transcriptomics and WSIs typically learn a mapping from morphological features to molecular profiles via contrastive alignment o.
Focus: Subsistence transition preceded population turnover in the eastern Colombian Andes.
The Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the eastern Colombian Andes preserves one of the Americas' most continuous archaeological sequences, recording cultural and demographic change.
We generated genome-wide data from 212 individuals spanning over 7,000 years, including early-middle and middle Holocene hunter-gatherers, initial late Holocene groups with mixed economies and the earliest isotopic…
Rühlemann M, Ma Y, Szánthó LL, Waschina S, Moitinho-Silva L, Mews LC, Faus-Camarena J, Jebens H, Costa J, Juimo V, Fezeu A, Agyei A, Afihene MY, Asibey SO, A...
Focus: Convergent genomic evolution of human gut bacteria along an industrialization gradient.
Whether human-associated environments drive adaptive genome evolution in gut commensal bacteria remains largely unknown.
Here, we investigate how genomic adaptation in gut bacteria differs between industrialized and non-industrialized human populations.
Ru X, Li X, Wu Z, Ren X, Zong Y, Cui Y, Li Y, Ding Z, Wang X, Zhang Z.
Focus: TECR palmitoylation triggers a necrotic cell death program driving acute liver injury.
Acute liver injury caused by drug toxicity or immune activation remains a major clinical challenge with limited mechanistic understanding and few effective therapies.
Here, we identify a previously unrecognized form of regulated cell death driven by palmitoylation of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-resident enzyme trans-2,3-enoyl-coenzyme A (CoA) reductase (TECR).
Poyet M, Rühlemann M, Schaan AP, Ma Y, Moitinho-Silva L, Wacker EM, Jebens H, Patel L, Nguyen LTT, Zimmer A, Plichta D, McDonald D, Stevens C, Agyei A, Afihe...
Focus: Industrialization drives convergent microbiome and host physiological shifts in the human metaorganism.
Understanding how industrialization reshapes the human metaorganism requires integrating microbiome ecology with host physiology across globally diverse populations.
Here, we generate multivariate data from the Global Microbiome Conservancy cohort, including gut microbiome, immunoglobulin A (IgA) sequencing, host genotyping, diet, lifestyle, and fecal biomarker profiles, to investigate…
Kuehnemann C, Jezak ST, Mogck BA, Kura N, Tariq R, Che Y, Vaittinen M, Siokas I, Deshpande S, Guthrie C, Tan X, Aimontche E, Kahn AA, Reifsnyder P, Lee G, Ma...
Focus: Fatty acid desaturation controls cellular fate decisions between senescence and ferroptosis.
When subject to damage or stress, cells develop responses in order to maintain tissue homeostasis.
Two such responses are ferroptosis and cellular senescence, but how cells decide between these outcomes remains unclear.
Focus: RNA assignment and segmentation geometry in Visium HD profiles of fibrostenotic Crohn's disease.
Retrospective reuse of spatial transcriptomics often starts from a deposited bin-level Seurat object rather than the inputs needed to revisit upstream molecular processing.
We tested whether image segmentation could support a defensible cell-like reconstruction under this constraint in two complete H&E-stained intestinal sections from a Visium HD study of Crohn's disease-associated…
Ou S, Guillen-Poza PA, Ng KK, Xu L, Cheng BY, Yi Y, Ho LY, Franco-Fernández A, Khaki PSS, Mukhi M, Cheung KC, Sharma R, Oroz J, Hirano Y, Hervas R.
Focus: Age-dependent structural evolution of a functional amyloid contributes to memory impairment in Drosophila.
Cryogenic electron microscopy has revealed endpoint structures of ex vivo amyloid filaments, but how amyloids assemble and evolve in living organisms-and how these transitions affect physiology-remains poorly understood.
Here, we map the age-dependent structural landscape of Orb2 amyloid, a synaptic translation regulator required for long-term memory, across the adult lifespan of Drosophila melano.
Guo Y, Cai H, Li D, Ren P, Cui L, Hao C, Jiang H, Zhang Z, Wang X, Guo J.
Focus: Spatial coordination in the codevelopment of the human urogenital system during organogenesis.
The human urogenital system originates from a common embryonic domain, yet the mechanisms guiding its spatiotemporal coordination remain understudied.
Here, we combined high-resolution spatial transcriptomics with single-cell multiomics to profile human embryos from Carnegie stages 15 to 23, capturing the codevelopmental dynamics of the urogenital system.
Chandrasekhar S, McMinimy R, Manford AG, Wehri E, Gee CL, Miller C, Bingol B, Kuriyan J, Schaletzky J, Rapé M.
Focus: Stimulated protein degradation to promote mitochondrial function and neuronal survival.
Targeted protein degradation is a promising modality to treat cancer or inflammation, but whether it can provide a similar benefit for disorders caused by pervasive protein dysregulation is…
We describe stimulated protein degradation (SPD) as a strategy that leverages agonists of stress-responsive E3 ubiquitin ligases to simultaneously eliminate multiple pathogenic factors.
Shamshirgar AS, Portugal GR, Ershadrad S, Ivanov R, Dahlqvist M, Chabanais F, Chakraborty S, Traksmaa R, Jussila T, Karppinen M, Hussainova I, Heintz F, Pers...
Focus: Data-driven discovery and rapid, direct synthesis of MXenes.
MXenes are a rapidly expanding family of two-dimensional transition metal carbides and nitrides, yet scalable synthesis routes remain limited and historical reports suggest a broader, largely unexplored chemical…
We used machine learning-assisted database mining to uncover hidden multilayer MXenes.
Focus: When AI takes away the thrill of discovery.
"Pure math is being devastated or revolutionized, depending on your point of view." So said Cornell professor Steven Strogatz after the artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI announced in.
early September a potential solution to the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, one of the seven Millennium Prize problems that represent the highest goals for mathematical proofs. OpenAI's…
Tan FQ, Slavkovic F, Zhang M, Adam G, Troadec C, Jiang ZH, Verdenaud M, Shirazi Parsa H, Cuzzi D, Liu X, Li X, Devani RS, Yan Y, Chen Q, Huang Y, Morison N, ...
Focus: Genetic coupling of floral rewards and signals underlies pollinator attraction.
Animal pollinators underpin biodiversity and global agriculture, yet the molecular mechanisms that coordinate floral rewards and signals to attract pollinators remain poorly understood.
Through phenotyping melon genetic diversity, we identified nectarless1 (nls1), encoding the YABBY-family transcription factor YABBY5 (YAB5), as a central integrator of pollinator-attracting traits.
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-29
Brabant C, Pollock L, Geldmann J, Bendixen M, Comte L, Farooq H, Hébert K, Lehner B, Sayer CA, Iversen LL.
Focus: The global geography of threats to freshwater biodiversity.
Human activities are eroding biodiversity, especially in freshwater systems.
Despite major advances in quantifying species vulnerability and threats, we still lack a crucial understanding of where threats are affecting freshwater species globally.
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-29
Jin K, Du Z, Xiong T, Leng F, Liu J, Zhang M, Tian B, Hu J, Hu H, Wang W, Zhao T, Xue JY, Yang X, Ye K, Li C, Wang X, Wang X, Wang X, Chai L, Xu Q, Sun M, Fr...
Focus: Papaver self-incompatibility is controlled by two multiallelic idiomorphs.
Self-incompatibility (SI) prevents self-fertilization through highly polymorphic genetic recognition at the S locus with multiple alleles.
In Papaver rhoeas, the S determinants were previously identified as PrpS and PrsS.
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-29
Gola A, Srinivas R, Rodig EG, Schernthanner M, Abdusselamoglu MD, Tierney MT, Alexander NJ, Gonzales KAU, Sajjath SM, Soto-Ugaldi LF, Bonny AR, Fuchs E.
Focus: A commensally regulated immune rheostat fine-tunes skin barrier fitness.
At the skin's surface, the epidermis must balance stem cell renewal with barrier maintenance to withstand environmental stress and shield against pathogens.
In this study, we identify a microbial-immune-epithelial feedback mechanism that integrates environmental information into stem cell regulation in mice.
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-29
Vignieri S, Lopez B, Hessler A, Suleymanov Y, Jiang D, Ferrarelli L, Jalan B, Maroso M, Ross SH, Nusinovich Y, Sonawala U, Lavine M, Ray LB, Stajic J, Olingy C.
Focus: In Science Journals.
Highlights from the.
Science family of journals.
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-29
Lewin P, Wynn J, Morford J, Padget O, Lancaster-Reeves L, Siddiqi-Davies K, Bailey H, Bond S, Davis M, Dean B, Fayet AL, Freeman R, Gillies N, Harris SM, Jag...
Focus: Rapid longitudinal flights cause time shifts and Sun compass error.
Many animals use the Sun compass to guide their movement, sometimes over thousands of kilometers.
Consistent use of the Sun compass relies on the endogenous clock to track the Sun's arc, yet animals traveling east-west experience time shifts, potentially causing mismatches between their…
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-29
James LS, Oudyk K, Pescaru MI, Wall EM, Chen Y, Pearse WD, Sakata JT.
Focus: Pervasive patterns in bird songs resemble those in human speech and song and are independent of vocal learning.
Bird songs are often described as analogs to human speech and songs, but expansive comparisons are necessary to determine analogy and mechanistic substrates.
By analyzing global corpora consisting of 367 bird species (>74,500 vocal elements from ~5900 songs) within two clades of vocal learners (oscines and hummingbirds) and related nonlearners (suboscines…
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-29
Focus: Genomic erosion across avifauna in a biodiversity hotspot sounds a conservation alarm.
Loss of biodiversity can have a hidden dimension-the cryptic erosion of genetic diversity even in the face of apparent species resilience.
We quantified changes in genetic diversity by comparing historical and modern genomes of 62 songbird species from the Gaoligong Mountains, a biodiversity hotspot in southwestern China.
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-29
Vazquez-Sanchez S, Arnold-Garcia O, Chillon-Marinas C, Maimon R, Cui J, McNair K, Dai Y, Jimenez NL, Child DD, Thompson LM, Lopez-Erauskin J, Bintu B, Clevel...
Focus: Multimodal spatial transcriptomics redefines cortical pathology in Huntington's disease.
Huntington's disease (HD) is caused by CAG expansion in the huntingtin gene (HTT), yet how somatic repeat instability and HTT inclusions relate to selective cell loss in the…
We have developed a multimodal spatial transcriptomics approach that enables the definition of transcriptional programs with subcellular resolution, somatic CAG repeat lengths, and eight other path.
Tanudisastro HA, Cuomo ASE, Weisburd B, Welland M, Spenceley E, Franklin M, Xue A, Huang HL, Bowen B, Fan J, Dong OA, Henry A, Allen PC, Wing K, Tang O, Gray...
Focus: Tandem repeat variation shapes immune cell type-specific gene expression.
Tandem repeats (TRs)-highly polymorphic, repetitive sequences across the human genome-are important regulators of gene expression but remain underexplored due to challenges in accurate genotyping and analysis1.
Here we generate whole-genome and single-cell RNA sequencing from more than 5.4 million blood-derived cells across 1,925 individuals in two cohorts2, and perform meta-analysis to characteri.
Cuomo ASE, Spenceley E, Tanudisastro HA, Bowen B, Henry A, Huang HL, Xue A, Zhou W, Welland MJ, Bryen SJ, Dong OA, Lee AS, Pullin JM, Wing K, Tang O, Gray MP...
Focus: Rare and common genetic variants shape single-cell immune gene expression.
Understanding the genetic basis of gene expression can shed light on the regulatory mechanisms underlying complex traits and diseases1,2.
Single-cell-resolved measures of RNA levels and single-cell expression quantitative trait loci have revealed genetic regulation that drives cell states and types across diverse tissues3.
Xue A, Fan J, Dong OA, Huang HL, Chen L, Allen PC, Spenceley E, Sagi-Zsigmond E, Bowen B, Henry A, Cuomo ASE, Tanudisastro HA, Qiao Z, Dorans E, Ben-David E,...
Focus: Genetic variants shape single-cell chromatin accessibility and disease risk.
Understanding how genetic variation shapes gene regulation at single-cell resolution is crucial for elucidating complex disease mechanisms1, but has been limited by the lack of large-scale single-cell multi-omics…
Here we present single-cell assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with sequencing of 3.5 million peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 1,042 donors with matched whole-geno.
Kim E, Kang M, Han JH, Lee J, Kim Y, Jeong CW, Lee H, Kim HJ, Shin K.
Focus: Tumour assembloids recapitulate tumour-CAF-T cell crosstalk in renal cancer.
Dynamic interactions between tumours and their microenvironment are crucial for cancer progression and therapeutic outcomes1,2.
However, our understanding of these relationships remains limited by the constrained capacity of current human model systems to manipulate diverse cellular components and to interrogate complex tumour-stroma crosstalk.
Najjar R, Wang X, Shaikh F, Wang N, Le E, An J, Pourshamsi M, Mustelin C, Moadab F, Mirabile-Brightman S, Montero L, Zavala KS, Gureghian V, Cervantes G, Van...
Focus: T and B cells recognize splicing-derived neutrophil neoantigens in lupus.
Proteome diversity is generated through alternative mRNA splicing1.
In tumours, mis-spliced transcripts that contain intronic sequences, skipped exons or noncanonical donor/acceptor splice junctions resulting in frameshifts are often translated into neoantigens that drive anti-tumour immunity2,3.
Yankova E, Sapetschnig A, Thomas B, Evans S, Eleftheriou M, Gozdecka M, Fischl H, Brevini T, Wilson R, Bucknell SJ, Hutchin A, Livi CM, Giotopoulos G, Asby R...
Focus: Pharmacological inhibition of METTL1 as a therapy against solid and blood cancers.
The N7-methylguanosine (m7G) modification is one of the most prevalent tRNA modifications, mainly catalysed by the METTL1-WDR4 protein complex1-4.
The m7G methyltransferase METTL1 has been linked to oncogenic transformation and the maintenance of several aggressive malignancies.
Debek S, Meydan C, Chin CR, Yu J, Durmaz C, Tsialta I, Pelzer B, Maurer C, Ou A, Laguillo-Diego A, Scourzic L, Tumuluru S, Teater M, Wu R, Darsow B, Rivas MA...
Focus: SWI/SNF complexes shape 3D chromatin architecture through CTCF and cohesin.
The BAF (also known as mammalian SWI/SNF) chromatin remodelling complexes are essential regulators of nucleosome positioning and transcription factor binding1,2.
Loss-of-function (LOF) mutations in genes encoding components of the BAF complexes are among the most frequent across cancer types3.
Li S, Liu J, Gao L, Wang Y, Liu R, Wan J, Li S, Li Z, Tang J, Ma L, Liu M, Lin C, Ji X, Liu Y, Chen C, Su X, Li L, Zhang J, Luo J, Tang J.
Focus: Monolithically and in situ integrated PbS infrared imagers.
Image sensors are critical components in artificial intelligence1-3, yet conventional approaches bond detector arrays to readout integrated circuits (ROICs), a process that increases complexity and cost4.
The ideal alternative-growing the detector directly on the ROIC from solution using raw materials-has remained elusive owing to the difficulty in achieving electronic-grade films through a ROIC-c.
Focus: Molecular underpinnings of rheumatic diseases and emerging therapeutic concepts.
Inflammatory rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus represent chronic inflammatory disorders that are caused by dysregulation of innate and adaptive immune responses.
Here we review current advances in our understanding of the molecular underpinnings of these diseases and discuss consequences with respect to emerging targets and treatm.
Jiang Z, Tayeri JM, Sun IH, Li J, Merrill ED, Qiu L, Zhang D, Johri V, Dobson ME, Watanabe R, Maishan M, Lowe MM, Tabuchi C, Gayer SG, Yoo A, Borkar NU, Wang...
Focus: Diet at disease onset determines tissue inflammatory memory.
Obesity, which is often associated with prolonged exposure to an obesogenic diet, substantially alters immunity1-7, but whether brief dietary changes shape acute inflammatory responses and long-term tissue memory…
Here we show that transient high-fat diet (HFD) exposure at the onset of acute type 17 skin inflammation exacerbates disease in lean mice to levels comparable to those…
Focus: Connectome simulations identify a central pattern generator for fly walking.
Animal locomotion relies on rhythmic body movements driven by central pattern generators (CPGs): neural circuits that produce oscillating output without oscillating input.
However, the circuit structure of a CPG for walking is not known in any animal1,2.
Sicorello M, Zaehringer J, Kraynak TE, Gianaros PJ, Nebe S, Paschke LM, Steimke R, Stelzel C, Walter H, LaBar KS, Graner JL, Kim SH, Wessa M, Sandner M, Wein...
Focus: Emotion regulation capacity lacks a shared neural signature.
Cognitive reappraisal refers to changing how one thinks about a situation to alter its emotional impact.
It is central to well-being1 and engages prefrontal regulatory circuits2, prompting the assumption that their activity reflects a person's capacity to regulate emotions3-5.
Imachi H, Nobu MK, Ishii S, Hashiguchi H, Hirakata Y, Hosogi N, Ikuta T, Isaji Y, Miyata M, Miyazaki M, Morono Y, Murata K, Nakagawa S, Narita A, Ogawara M, ...
Focus: Eukaryotes' closest relatives are internally simple syntrophic peptidotrophic archaea.
Eukaryotes are theorized to have an origin associated with the archaeal phylum Promethearchaeota (formerly Asgard archaea)1-3.
The first cultured representatives revealed valuable insights4,5 but are still distantly related to eukaryotes, leaving many unknowns regarding eukaryogenesis.
Shao DD, Zhao Y, Brew J, Adla Y, Ghosh U, Viswanadham VV, Luquette LJ, Zhao S, Kriz AJ, Qian X, Taketomi T, Coy S, Santagata S, Miller M, Tsuruta F, Park PJ,...
Focus: Perinatal elimination of genetically aberrant human cortical neurons.
Human neurons are postmitotic and long-lived, requiring precise genomic regulation.
Normal neuronal function is highly dosage-sensitive, with copy number variants (CNVs) and heterozygous point mutations associated with a host of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions1-4.
Focus: Presynaptic homeostasis mediated by exocytosis of a SNARE protein.
The neural plasticity that underlies adaptation and learning requires countervailing homeostatic mechanisms to maintain the stability and responsiveness of neural circuits.
Previous work has described several forms of synaptic homeostasis1, but the mechanisms that detect changes in activity and transduce these into altered neurotransmission have remained poorly understood.
Mencos J, Badura A, Dolan E, Beckert S, González-Hernández R, Sigales N, Kokkeler T, Kounta I, Petit M, Guillemard C, Hellenes AB, Campos W, Rial J, Kriegner...
Focus: Time-reversal-symmetry-breaking spin injection from a compensated magnet.
The generation and transport of spin currents are central to spintronics, a technologically relevant field in which information is carried and manipulated using the electron spin rather than…
Conventionally, electrical spin injection and the separation of charge and spin currents rely either on ferromagnets1-10, in which spin polarization originates from a net magnetiz.
Zhang S, Gong X, Tian S, Yang Y, Tong X, Sheng K, Zhang Y, Amatsu S, Zhang X, Yu D, Zhao H, Ruan L, Sun H, Wu K, Dong M, Xiong X.
Focus: Clostridium perfringens Delta toxin targets CD9 to drive NEC and brain injury.
Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is the most devastating gastrointestinal emergency in preterm infants, frequently causing mortality and long-term neurodevelopmental impairment1,2.
Although the gut microbiota has been implicated in NEC pathogenesis3-5, the microbial factors driving NEC and the following brain pathology remain unclear.
Dellmour RW, Coco E, Samawi O, Al Kindi M, Al Mahrooqi A, Bebber MR, Eren MI, Harzhauser M, Garba R, Rose JI.
Focus: Stone and water governed early human settlement of the desert.
Models of early human dispersal rely on climate to predict where populations could settle, with freshwater assumed to govern the timing and geography1,2, particularly across the Saharo-Arabian arid…
Yet Pleistocene dispersals into 'Green Arabia' were brief and geographically constrained4,5, a pattern not explained by.
The heart possesses a dynamic capacity to oxidize a variety of fuels, including glucose and lactate, to meet its energetic demands under diverse dietary, exertion and injury stressors1.
Oxidation of carbohydrate substrates is thought to converge on the cytosolic generation of pyruvate, which is transported by the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) for entry into the tricarboxylic…
Roggors S, Unden T, Aubele A, Mentzel P, Bayer G, Salhov A, Scharpf J, Plenio MB, Retzker A, Jelezko F, Eichhorn TR, Schaub TA, Pfender M, Neumann P, Schwart...
Focus: A single-molecule spin-photon interface.
Optical interfaces that connect long-lived spin qubits to photons are a central requirement for quantum networking and distributed quantum information processing.
At present, solid-state atomic defects are leading candidates because of their inherent spin and optical coherence1,2.
Huang L, Bian C, Xin B, Zhang X, Lu Q, Yue Y, Li Y, Zeng R, Liu X, Fan X, Wang T, Wang Y, Cao J, Zhang J, Wu J, Lin Z, Zhao J, Cheng W, Gao S, Chen Y, Lu Y, ...
Focus: Deep sequencing of 3,367 maize genomes uncovers substantial contribution of rare variants to agronomic traits.
Rare variants are highly abundant, yet their genome-wide contributions to agronomic traits remain elusive in plants.
Here, we performed deep whole-genome sequencing of 3,367 diverse elite maize inbred lines, uncovering 75.3 million variants, of which 79.2% were rare.
Li G, Han F, Wang C, Jin M, Lin J, Zhang H, Yan X, Wang X, Sun X, Yuan Y, Zhang S, Zhang S, Zhu J, Xu Y, Wang Y, Deng Y, Li F, Shi L, Luk A, Wang N, Yang H, ...
Focus: In vivo genome-editing therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy: Preclinical studies and first-in-human trial.
We report the preclinical and early clinical evaluation of in vivo genome editing for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), delivered via a single AAV9 vector.
In humanized DMD mice, systemic administration achieved targeted genome editing, partial dystrophin restoration, and improved muscle function.
Bell HN, Nair K, Tison K, Liao P, Lei H, El-Derany MO, Yisimayi A, Zhang H, Rebernick R, Wang W, Adachi Y, Castillo C, Das NK, An J, Sutton VR, Lin X, Lin H,...
Focus: Perforin triggers iron-induced mitochondrial damage to drive ferroptosis and anti-tumor immunity.
Cytotoxic CD8 + T cells and natural killer cells are critical effectors of anti-tumor immunity.
Cytotoxic lymphocytes eliminate tumor cells by releasing perforin (Prf1), a pore-forming protein that enables granzymes (Gzms) to enter target cells and trigger both caspase-dependent and -independent cell death.
Kim JW, Bebber CM, Dai Y, Bopp S, Edenhofer A, Li AM, Rösner T, Berning L, Yang M, Leak LB, Stroh J, Shrestha B, Abdallah AT, Prymidis D, Olivos HJ, Baron M,...
Focus: Cell-state-specific metabolic networks govern ferroptosis versus apoptosis in small cell lung cancer.
Cellular heterogeneity and plasticity are hallmarks of cancer that contribute to tumor growth and therapy resistance.
Here, we investigated metabolic heterogeneity in small cell lung cancer (SCLC), an aggressive cancer type with considerable plasticity between neuroendocrine (NE) and non-NE cellular states.
Guan C, Ryu S, Dong M, Zhu Y, Maeda R, Youm YH, Mohanty S, Kim HH, Orliaguet L, Dlugos T, Smith SR, Ravussin E, Onyuru J, Hoffman HM, Siebel S, Wang A, Wang ...
Focus: Taurine lowers inflammaging by regulating the NLRP3 inflammasome in macrophages.
Whether a decline in taurine drives aging is debated, and despite high millimolar intracellular concentrations, its function as a potential guardian of cytosolic homeostasis is unclear.
Here, we show that aging increases circulating taurine concentrations in humans and mice.
Patra D, Wolfgang K, Ye C, Rigatti L, Ertwine K, Morder KM, Jana J, Baral I, Hurd D, Bossong K, Mullett S, Dou Y, Gelhaus S, Vignali DAA, Davar D, Cillo AR, ...
Focus: Lifestyle-induced regulatory T cell fragility primes adverse events after immune checkpoint blockade.
Immune checkpoint blockade has transformed cancer therapy, but immune-related adverse events (irAEs) remain a major, sometimes fatal, limitation, and the lack of robust preclinical models has hindered mechanistic…
We present the lifestyle-induced susceptibility to irAEs (LISA) model, in which diet-driven metabolic and microbial alterations recreate human-like susceptibility to anti-PD-1 to.
Englander RP, Brugiolo M, Devoucoux M, Wu TC, Kostich M, Leclair NK, Walawalkar I, Kang HG, Park S, Marches F, Peeples ME, Chen P, Banchereau J, Yu P, Salner...
Focus: Intron retention regulates STAT2 function and associates with immunotherapy response in lung cancer.
Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized cancer therapy and enabled considerable therapeutic advances for treating various diseases, including lung cancer.
However, the molecular determinants of variable patient outcomes remain unclear.
Nori H, Daswani M, Kelly C, Lundberg S, Ribeiro MT, Wilson M, Liu X, Sounderajah V, Carlson JM, Lungren MP, Gross B, Hames P, Suleyman M, King D, Horvitz E.
Focus: Sequential diagnosis with language models.
We explored the capabilities of frontier language models in sequential diagnosis, a diagnostic paradigm that captures the iterative nature of clinical reasoning.
Given a brief clinical presentation, clinicians selectively acquired information to reach a diagnosis, enabling assessment of diagnostic accuracy and workup cost.
Last month, leading executives of artificial intelligence (AI) companies warned the United Nations Security Council about the risks of losing human control over this rapidly advancing technology.
Their recommendations focused heavily on safeguards, evaluation, and governance of AI models and systems, largely overlooking the risks that arise from the interactions of AI with people and…
Focus: The Virtual Biotech: A multi-agent AI framework for therapeutic discovery and development.
Drug development requires evidence integration across biological scales and modalities, but relevant tools are fragmented.
We introduce the Virtual Biotech, an organization of artificial intelligence (AI) agents modeled on a drug-development company, with agentic divisions spanning target discovery, safety assessment, modality selection, and…
Focus: Metazoan lagging-strand DNA synthesis is distributive.
DNA's anti-parallel structure presents a topological challenge to the replisome, as leading and lagging strands must be synthesized in opposite directions.
How lagging-strand synthesis is coordinated with leading-strand synthesis remains unresolved in eukaryotes.
Xiao S, Tung AS, Spaas J, Fu S, Chen X, Trinh TK, Moya-Garzon MD, Li VL, Cessna HT, Ito K, Reghupaty SC, Lin C, Lyu X, Raun SH, Tyner MDW, Germakovski A, Ton...
Focus: MCT6 is an intestinal Lac-Phe exporter required for metformin-associated weight loss.
Metabolites are increasingly recognized as circulating molecules that regulate physiology, yet the mechanisms that couple local intracellular production to organism-wide action remain poorly defined.
Using the anorexigenic metabolite N-lactoyl-phenylalanine (Lac-Phe) as a model system, we identify the orphan transporter MCT6/SLC16A5 as a physiologic intestinal Lac-Phe exporter.
JournalLife scienceScience (New York, N.Y.)2026-10-22