Comment in 2026

Placental organoids offer powerful tools to advance diagnostics and therapies for pregnancy complications including preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction. However, most current models rely on animal-derived materials and heterogenous cell sources. Developing human-based physiologically relevant organoid models is essential to understand disease phenotypes and improve clinical care for high-risk pregnancies.

Surgeons depend on a finely tuned multisensory system, in which vision and kinaesthesia work in synergy to manipulate tissue with precision. Translating this to robotic systems requires a hierarchical framework of artificial kinaesthesia, progressing from physical sensing to algorithmic understanding, and finally, to synergistic control.

Four-dimensional bioprinting of tissues goes beyond cellular constructs that evolve or mature over time. It should incorporate time as an active design parameter, enabling programmed and predictable transformations. This requires implementing shape-morphing behaviour, either within materials or cell–matrix composites, to control the construct’s transition in form or size.

When soft tissue is mechanically deformed, new material properties and functionalities can emerge. Through rational design of dynamic covalent chemistry and network architecture, new force-catalysed activities in hydrogels can be achieved, forming the basis of a ‘mechanochemical toolbox’ to expand the functionality of soft synthetic biomaterials.

Precision health is based on multimodal, personal data from individuals. However, regulatory frameworks typically require collecting only what is strictly necessary, a standard that is difficult to define in biomedicine. Here we explore how data minimization can be embedded into precision health, turning privacy from a limitation into a guiding design principle for data collection, storage and governance.