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Ten years ago, Woo Suk Hwang rose to the top of his field before fraud and dodgy bioethical practices derailed his career. Can a scientific pariah redeem himself?

Multiple sclerosis is characterized by the activation of microglia cells. Davalos et al. investigate the early stages of neuroinflammation in mice and reveal that the plasma protein fibrinogen induces microglial clustering around the brain vasculature, which facilitates lesion formation and focal axonal damage.

Vortex–charge duality is a model that has been proposed for describing the superconducting to insulator transition in disordered thin films. Mehtaet al. report experimental evidence for this duality in the two-dimensional electron gas that arises in LaAlO₃/SrTiO₃heterostructures.

Mass spectrometry is used to systematically analyse the brains of patients suffering from Huntingdon's disease, as well as several mouse models of the disease, for the presence of ubiquitin chains. In all cases, an accumulation of ubiquitin chains was found, suggesting that a general dysfunction of this system may contribute to the disease process.

Men with erectile dysfunction (ED) that is unresponsive to available oral pharmacotherapy with PDE5 inhibitors represent a significant subgroup of patients with the disorder. Such patients might in the near future benefit from regenerative medicine options that restore tissue integrity and signalling in penis-projecting neurons, penile smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells. In this comprehensive Review, the authors discuss the current cutting-edge research in regenerative medicine for ED and consider the therapeutic potential of these techniques for the future.

Using a chemical vapour deposition method, it is possible to epitaxially grow wafer-scale single-crystal trilayers of hexagonal boron nitride—an important dielectric for 2D materials—on Ni (111) foils by boron dissolution.

Genome-wide analysis identifies 30 loci associated with bipolar disorder, allowing for comparisons of shared genes and pathways with other psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and depression.

By using optoelectronic device arrays for chip-to-chip communication and neuromorphic cores based on memristor crossbar arrays for highly parallel data processing, reconfigurable and stackable hetero-integrated chips can be created for use in edge computing applications.

Fibrin deposition occurs after the blood–brain barrier is breached. Akassoglou and colleagues generate a therapeutic monoclonal antibody that targets a cryptic fibrin epitope to suppress activation of innate immune responses in the CNS and diminish neuroinflammation.

Using a sample of more than 1 million individuals, Hatoum et al. identify genomic loci associated with general and substance-specific addiction risk.

Soft electronic patches worn on the skin of infants or children in intensive-care units have a wide range of capabilities in aiding critical care, including monitoring of hemodynamic parameters, cardiac activity, movement and crying.

Wetland methane emissions contribute to global warming, and are oversimplified in climate models. Here the authors use eddy covariance measurements from 48 global sites to demonstrate seasonal hysteresis in methane-temperature relationships and suggest the importance of microbial processes.

In-plane polarized ferroelectric thin films typically exhibit complicated multidomain states, not desirable for optoelectronic device performance. Here, the authors combine interfacial symmetry engineering and anisotropic strain to design single-domain in-plane polarized ferroelectric BaTiO₃ films.

Analysis of genomic and transcriptomic data from 462 patient-derived tumor cell (PDC) samples across 14 cancer types, along with pharmacological responses to 60 agents, indicates that PDC-derived drug sensitivities might be predictive of clinical response to targeted therapies.

Coexpression of DNA end–processing enzymes with targeted nucleases improves the efficiency of gene disruption in mammalian cells.

The 3CL protease of SARS-CoV-2 is inhibited by PF-00835231 in vitro. Here, the authors show that the prodrug PF-07304814 has broad spectrum activity, inhibiting SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 in mice and its ADME and safety profile support clinical development.

Fabrication methods to pattern thin materials are a critical tool to build molecular scale devices. Here the authors report a selective etching method using XeF₂ gas to pattern graphene based heterostructures with multiple active layers and achieve 1D contacts with low contact resistivity of 80 Ω·µm

Tailoring MOFs to allow access of complex and large molecules is a challenging task due to their inherent microporous nature. Here the authors engineer meso- and macroporous MOF patterns and membranes via a mild decarboxylation applicable to different substrates, demonstrating their potential in macromolecule separations.

Chemical doping is a viable strategy to tune the electrical properties of pristine graphene, but suffers from stability issues. Here, the authors develop a macromolecular chemical doping approach that makes use of polymeric acid and provides high stability.

The 300–1,000 Hz band of spiking activity, dominated by local single-unit spikes, can enhance the decoding performance of neural interfaces.

Using more than 100 independent iPSC lines derived from patients with Alzheimer’s disease, the authors discovered loci associated with the neuronal production of amyloid β and confirmed their influence using RNA interference.

Sphingosine-1-phosphate is a bioactive lipid with various physiological roles. Here, Silva et al. show that sphingosine-1-phosphate signalling in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus regulates food intake of rodents, and that this process is altered in animal models of obesity and cancer anorexia.

High pulse pressure was significantly associated with an increased risk of acute kidneyinjury following intracranial hemorrhage. Pulse pressure should be recognized as anovel potential risk factor and one of the predictors of acute kidney injury afterintracranial hemorrhage.

Sphingosine kinase (SphK) converts sphingosine into lipids, and is implicated in inflammation. Here the authors show that SphK1 functions as an acetyltransferase, regulates microglial phagocytosis and is reduced in a model of Alzheimer’s Disease, such that its restoration ameliorates pathology

Misfolded polypeptide aggregates are actively transported to aggresomes, where they are degraded through aggrephagy. Here the authors show that these aggregates are selectively recognized by the CTIF–eEF1A1–DCTN1 (CED) complex and transported to aggresomes through the interactions of DCTN1 with dynein motors.

Walter Kahr and colleagues report mutations in NBEAL2 in gray platelet syndrome (GPS). Using RNA-seq, the authors observed abnormal pre-mRNA processing in NBEAL2 in platelets from an individual with GPS.

A fluorescent reporter, named traffic light, reads out whether repair of a DNA break occurs by nonhomologous end-joining or by homologous recombination. It should enable the identification of factors that affect repair pathway choice and thus improved approaches for genome engineering.

TMEM127 is a tumor suppressor protein, loss of which predisposes to catecholamine-secreting tumors. Here the authors show that TMEM127 expression is modulated by nutritional status and that it has a role in regulating organismal insulin sensitivity.

Exchange coupling between ferromagnetic and multiferroic materials is a key to magnetoelectric devices but hard to achieve macroscopically. Here, the authors report room–temperature robust and reproducible magnetoelectric switching in Co/BiFeO3 heterostructures with monodomain properties over the entire sample at room temperature.

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.

In Alzheimer's disease, increased MAOB activity in reactive astrocytes leads to enhanced GABA release, and blockage of this pathway ameliorates memory dysfunction in mouse models.