Q&As

Research efforts to develop digital twins in medicine are rapidly increasing, with promising emerging applications in oncology, diabetes management and cardiovascular medicine. While medical digital twins hold great promise for personalized healthcare, their implementation is no easy feat. The field faces diverse challenges including collecting data, choosing computational model designs, ensuring safety and efficacy, and preventing biases. What can be learned from the successes achieved? Which are the most promising upcoming applications? We asked experts in the field for their thoughts.

Despite major advances in bringing cancer cell therapies to the clinic, their widespread accessibility remains a substantial challenge. High manufacturing costs, lack of funding and varying regulatory standards have restricted patient access. As the field advances, researchers, clinicians, regulatory bodies, funding agencies and industry will need to work together to overcome these barriers. A group of experts share their insights into the most pressing challenges and promising strategies to make cell therapies more broadly accessible.

The development of therapeutic cancer vaccines has long been a promising yet challenging field of research. While early efforts were impeded by limited efficacy and immune escape, recent advances in immunotherapy, mRNA technology and tumor antigen discovery have sparked renewed interest in cancer vaccine development. What is the current state of the field, and how should we address the remaining challenges to bring therapeutic cancer vaccines to the clinic? Which modalities hold potential, and what might the future of therapeutic cancer vaccines look like?

Following the publication of AlphaFold2 and RoseTTAFold in 2021, the field of protein structure prediction has moved quickly to incorporate these advances into protein engineering.

A group of experts reflects on what was learned from the first human transplants of genetically engineered pig organs and what the future of xenotransplantation may hold.

Even though only a few labs around the world have the means to engineer a purely synthetic virus, debate on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 has resurfaced concerns about the risks and benefits of synthetic virology.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg reveals what prompted her to go from diagnostic feces to ‘l’eau de leucadendron’ in a collaboration with Ginkgo Bioworks.

With the first readouts of trials of antibodies against COVID-19 appearing and others coming thick and fast, Nature Biotechnology asked a group of experts to comment on the challenges and timelines for these products.

Nature Biotechnology convenes a group of experts to provide their insights into SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in development.

A discussion of the ethical issues associated with decoding and modulating brain function.

Accounting for errors arising from different high-throughput sequencing platforms and those arising from the approaches used to call variants are at the center of a controversy in RNA editing.

Ten experts discuss innovations needed to analyze the millions of genomes soon to be sequenced.

Plant scientist Roger Beachy has joined the Obama administration to lead the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the new research funding arm of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Beachy, whose research led to the first transgenic crop, was previously the long-time head of the not-for-profit Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. Emily Waltz talks to Beachy about his plans for the new agency.

Steve Reed believes the organization he has founded has the potential to radically increase the developing world's access to vaccines for neglected diseases. The efforts of the Seattle-based Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI), which operates as a not-for-profit biotech company, may start to pay off during the H1N1 'swine' flu pandemic. IDRI developed an adjuvant to boost the effectiveness and supplies of flu vaccines and is making the technology available to vaccine manufacturers in developing nations. Charlotte Schubert talks to Reed about how IDRI, a 90-person operation with a $19 million annual budget, could have such a big impact.