Search

First-in-class inhibitor of the Hedgehog signalling pathway approved in the United States for the treatment of basal cell carcinoma.

There are strong bidirectional links between access to energy services and women’s empowerment, but they are often overlooked in the literature. This Review examines these connections as they are discussed in theoretical and empirical work, identifying gaps in knowledge and approaches to the relationships between gender and energy.

For the past 40 years, there has been no major addition to the repertoire of drugs for treating severe, chronic pain. Now, two drugs with a completely different mechanism of action, targeting N-type calcium channels, are making their market debuts in the US and Europe—milestones that have received remarkably little attention.

Group IV–VI materials often exist in a state near an electronic or structural phase transition. Here, the authors use ultrafast X-ray scattering to show that coupling of band-edge electrons and phonons causes the ferroelectric instability observed in lead telluride.

Resistance to first line treatment is a major hurdle in cancer treatment, that can be overcome with drug combinations. Here, the authors provide a large drug combination screen across cancer cell lines to benchmark crowdsourced methods and to computationally predict drug synergies.

Quantum electrodynamics predicts a rare process in which light is scattered by light. The ATLAS Collaboration reports signs of this elusive effect in the collisions of ultra-relativistic lead ions.

The FDA approval of perioperative pembrolizumab, an approach that combines neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy with this agent, for patients with early stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) contradicts its own stated standard for combination therapies. Given the large population of patients with early stage NSCLC and the high costs of pembrolizumab, whether the adjuvant component provides incremental benefit is an important question.

Time is running out to prevent our closest living relatives—the great apes—from being driven to extinction at our own hands. Mitani et al. advocate for substantial changes to policy and research practices before it is too late.

Results from the phase 2/3 clinical trial of gantenerumab or solanezumab in dominantly inherited Alzheimer’s disease reveal no beneficial effects on cognitive measures despite a significant reduction in amyloid plaques and other key biomarkers in those treated with gantenerumab.

In 2023, four US news media outlets gave disproportionately high coverage to rare homicidal events perpetrated by strangers, including mass and school shootings, yet covered disproportionately few of the more common types of firearm violence, such as domestic violence. We call for responsible media coverage of firearm incidents to realign reporting to reality.

A trans-disciplinary framework shows how collaborative engagement and multi-phase development pathways can aid scaling up urban agriculture to transform food systems and support robust urban resilience and sustainability.

Production of polyphosphate polymers is a ubiquitous trait of bacteria. Here, the authors investigate the role of bacterial long polyphosphates in host immune suppression and show that long polyphosphates produced by E. coli inhibit LPS-mediated inflammation and bacterial clearance in mice.

The understanding of complex electronic correlation and non-equilibrium atomic interactions is a grand challenge. Here, the authors show that chemical disorder in single-phase concentrated solid solution alloys can lead to reduction in electron mean free path and electrical and thermal conductivity.

Thomas Bugge and colleagues report that the matriptase protease initiates an epidermal kallikrein proteolytic cascade in mice lacking Spink5, which encodes the serine protease inhibitor LEKTI. Loss of matriptase rescued some features of excessive proteolytic degradation of corneodesmosomes and inflammatory activation in LEKTI-deficient mice, which are a model of human Netherton syndrome.

Kynurenine-3-monooxygenase (KMO) is an emerging clinical target for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and acute pancreatitis. Here, the authors report potent inhibitors that bind KMO in an unexpected conformation, offering structural and mechanistic insights for future drug discovery ventures.

It is believed that mutations in desmosomal adhesion complex protein plakophilin 2 (PKP2) cause arrhythmia due to loss of cell-cell communication. Here the authors show that PKP2 controls the expression of proteins involved in calcium cycling in adult mouse hearts, and that lack of PKP2 can cause arrhythmia in a structurally normal heart.

On Venus, the bulk of O and O₂ are gravitationally bound, but heavy ions have been observed to escape, though their composition could not be determined. Venus Express measurements report that the dominant escaping ions are O⁺, He⁺ and H⁺. The escape of H⁺ and O⁺, together with the estimated neutral hydrogen and oxygen escape, currently takes place near the stoichometric ratio corresponding to water.

Inside tips on how managers can deal with staffing challenges in a growing biotechnology company.

Efforts to address the water challenges that societies face are hindered by a lack of funding and ineffective implementation, as well as poor understanding of the causes. Adopting a beyond growth framing, this Perspective reflects on the responses needed to mitigate water crises around the world.

Recent US climate bills mark a major step in domestic climate actions, while their successful implementation relies on strong assumptions. This Perspective discusses potential challenges regarding supply, consumer demand and political polarization and how insights of social science could help to overcome these challenges.

Inhaled RNA is coming soon for countermeasures against respiratory pathogens, including COVID-19.

A growing body of research suggests that prenatal exposure to paracetamol (APAP) might alter development and increase the risk of some reproductive, urogenital and neurodevelopmental disorders. This Consensus Statement calls for precautionary action, including a focused research effort, increasing awareness among health professionals and pregnant women and, whenever possible, minimizing use.

Growing demand in both the research and clinical markets is fueling the development – and funding – of more efficient genomic sequencing methods.

Co-developing a drug with a diagnostic to create a stratified medicine — a therapy that is targeted to a specific patient population on the basis of a clinical biomarker — presents challenges for product developers, regulators, payers and physicians. With the aim of developing a shared framework and tools for addressing these challenges, this article presents an analysis using data from case studies in oncology and Alzheimer's disease, coupled with integrated computational modelling of clinical outcomes and economic value, to quantify the effects of decisions on key issues such as the design of clinical trials.

An expert look at planning for a biotech job interview, from both sides.

The predominance of manufacturing process patents asserted in litigation by originator biologics companies against would-be biosimilar entrants has resulted in a number of Congressional and administrative agency proposals that could increase scrutiny and limit enforceability.

Ariad Pharmaceuticals's victory against Lilly on NF-κB patent infringement has drug companies and legal experts wondering about the future of biotech patenting. Ken Garber reports on the aftermath of the surprising decision.

Epizyme’s EZH2 inhibitor gains two approvals in quick succession — a milestone for this new class of epigenetic cancer drug that targets histone marks with greater precision than previous generations.

Rural communities manage much of the world’s forests, but the effects on both landscapes and people are still unclear. This study estimates the impacts of such community-based forest management in Nepal from 2000–2012 and finds significant net reductions in both deforestation and poverty.

Forecasting epidemic progression is a complex task influenced by various factors, including human behaviour, pathogen dynamics and environmental conditions. Rodríguez, Kamarthi and colleagues provide a review of machine learning methods for epidemic forecasting from a data-centric computational perspective.

Gilead’s $21 billion gamble is a dramatic shot to secure a promising first-in-class oncology drug.

As multiple UN fora develop parallel rules for sharing benefits from digital sequence information, we urge better coordination. International policymakers should focus on harmonizing new benefit-sharing rules to ensure open access to data, database interoperability, and better benefit sharing outcomes.

As a field that embraces technology, urology has evolved quickly in the past 15 years and is likely to change at an even greater pace in the next 15. Several approaches and initiatives have the potential to improve patient care, in particular the use of telemedicine, improvements in data analytics and growth of physician collaboratives.

Deep patent portfolios help drugmakers block market entry by potential biosimilars, but many biologic patents logically cannot be valid barriers to competitive entry.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial global impact. This Perspective provides insight into the environmental effects of the pandemic, documenting how it offers an opportunity to better understand the Earth System.