News & Comment

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.

A bioresorbable, light-activated polymer, integrated with a 3D-printed chamber, enables atraumatic and sutureless peripheral nerve repair. Translating this material platform from concept to clinical reality required iterative design, scalable manufacturing, multidisciplinary collaboration and long-term vision for a versatile surgical technology.

As artificial intelligence enters the scientific arena, it not only compels us to rethink the scientific method but also opens the door to reimagine long-standing practices.

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.

Climate change and geopolitical uncertainties require proactive measures to ensure food security and human resilience, with a focus on sustainable agricultural practices and soil preservation. We explore innovative solutions to preserve, improve and restore soil health and highlight how they can address global soil degradation and ensure sustainable food production.

Ageing, disease and trauma can lead to impaired muscle function, which could be restored by implantable artificial muscles. Here we outline key performance metrics required for soft artificial muscles to restore function in stress urinary incontinence and to enable sit-to-stand transfer.

Wearable biosensors can continuously monitor disease biomarkers, therapeutic drugs and health-related analytes to provide real-time diagnostic insights. The wearable biosensor Aptalyzer integrates hydrogel microneedles and an electrochemical aptamer-based biosensor to assess biomarkers in the skin interstitial fluid.

Biomedical engineering innovations are being reimagined to address climate and environmental challenges, from food safety and crop engineering to plastic degradation and soil remediation.

Textile waste can be transformed into functional fibres through mechanical, chemical and enzymatic recycling, followed by spinning techniques. These upcycled materials enable the sustainable development of value-added products for applications such as wound care, antibacterial textiles, energy harvesting and storage, and environmental sensing.

Illness during pregnancy presents a therapeutic dilemma: treatment must protect the mother without compromising fetal health. Yet, most drugs remain insufficiently studied in pregnancy. Understanding pregnancy stage-specific drug pharmacokinetics and placental drug transport can guide the design of nanomedicine to optimize treatments during pregnancy.

Dynamic precision medicine enables preemptive cancer therapy switching in response to emerging resistance. Owing to their modular architecture and tumour-targeting capabilities, nanomedicines are theoretically well-suited to support such adaptive strategies. However, the questions remain whether modular design can consistently yield durable therapeutic responses, and whether the temporal constraints imposed by tumour evolution allow the practical implementation of dynamic nanomedicine.

If large language models can replicate academic writing, perhaps it was never as creative as once believed. We propose rethinking the scientific article as a multimodal endeavour. Exploring how words, visuals and other modes can work together helps us imagine new ways of creating and communicating scientific knowledge.

Artificial intelligence might reshape the approach to science, from generating concepts and hypotheses to designing experiments, analysing data and publishing findings. However, it might also introduce risks around data integrity, reproducibility, accountability and bias. Here we provide practical guidance on how to responsibly integrate artificial intelligence into the research pipeline.

An article in Nature Biotechnology reports a microphysiological tumour-on-achip model that supports vascularization of human tumour explants and controlled perfusion with CAR T cells, enabling the in vitro study of CAR T cell activity within the human tumour microenvironment.

The Basel Wearable Clinic is a device-agnostic platform for cardiac care, integrating remote electrocardiogram assessment and teleconsultation. Integrating wearables into clinical workflows allows scalable arrhythmia care and a blueprint for extended wearable-based risk stratification in clinical medicine.

As the International Space Station (ISS) approaches retirement and commercial low Earth orbit (LEO) platforms begin to emerge, the key question is not what was discovered but how those lessons can be carried forward into the next era of space research. Here we discuss how actionable insights from the ISS rodent research portfolio can be translated into human-relevant standards and practices.

Nature has spent billions of years evolving the most efficient and effective solutions to complex problems, from navigation and energy harvesting to visual processing and biodegradation. Bioinspired engineering draws on these strategies to design adaptive, efficient and sustainable technologies, particularly in fields such as robotics, materials science and medical device engineering.