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The role of RNA-binding protein (RBP) phase separation in transcriptional regulation and its contribution to tumorigenesis remains to be characterised. Here, the authors show that RBP AKAP95 physically co-condenses with the mixed lineage leukemia 1 (MLL1) translocated fragment commonly found in MLL rearranged (MLLr) leukemia to promote leukemogenesis.

The efficiency of perovskite/Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ tandem solar cells is limited by halide segregation in the perovskite layer. Zhang et al. use 2-pyrrolidinone to slow the crystallization of halide intermediates, ensuring a homogeneous distribution and achieving a power conversion efficiency of 27.3%.

Freestanding membranes of hexagonal oxides remain difficult to obtain. In this work, a water-soluble crystalline hexagonal BaAl₂O₄ is found to serve as a sacrificial layer for obtaining freestanding membranes with six-fold or three-fold symmetry.

The Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative recruited and genotyped more than half a million Taiwanese participants, almost all of Han Chinese ancestry, and performed comprehensive genomic analyses and developed polygenic risk score prediction models for numerous health conditions.

LINE-1 retrotransposons are implicated in aging, but their role in cardiac aging specifically is not well understood. Here the authors show that LINE-1 expression rises in mouse hearts with age. Genetic LINE-1 derepression is accompanied by cGAS–STING activation and cardiac dysfunction, while pharmacological inhibition of LINE-1 or STING improves cardiac function in aged mice.

DEAD-box helicase 6 (DDX6), the regulator of P-body assembly, is essential for the survival of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells. Here the authors report that DDX6 undergoes phase separation to preserve mRNA subsets in P-bodies, promoting branched-chain amino acid metabolism and chemoresistance in AML.

Liu, Chen, Yang et al. investigate the effect of GLP-1 receptor activation on ovarian cancer risk across different subtypes. They show that it specifically lowers the risk of one subtype, endometrioid ovarian cancer, mediated in part by specific metabolic factors.

Soil viruses may impact soil carbon cycle. Here, the authors use metagenomic analysis of contaminated soil and 13 C labeled microcosm incubation to show that the DNA viral community enhances microbial carbon fixation capacity via auxiliary metabolic genes.

Earth-abundant cobalt-based catalysts have shown promise to replace iridium as anode catalysts in proton-exchange-membrane water electrolysers, but unfortunately they exhibit high degradation rates. Now, a lanthanum and calcium co-modification of Co₃O₄ is presented, in which lanthanum tunes the water–surface interactions to suppress cobalt dissolution and improve stability, while calcium leaching creates coordinatively unsaturated cobalt sites, leading to enhanced activity.

Receptor engagement is a determinant of alphavirus entry. This work reveals how Western Equine Encephalitis Virus uses very-low-density lipoprotein receptor (VLDLR) to invade our cells and finds that a single polymorphism in the E2 glycoprotein determines the receptor’s tropism.

Hepatitis E virus is a leading cause of acute viral hepatitis and antibodies can persist for years post-infection. Here, the authors quantify the protective effects of naturally acquired immunity against subclinical and clinical hepatitis E infection using data from a placebo arm of a vaccine trial in China.

Integrating work–life balance while pursuing exciting scientific questions and navigating the publishing process as a senior author are challenges that researchers often encounter, particularly in their transition to independence. In this instalment of our Career Pathways series, Jiyeon Kim and Angelika Harbauer reflect on how they have experienced this process.

MultiCell is a deep learning method to capture complex cell dynamics during multicellular development.

Vision–language deep neural network models better explain human visual cortex activity than vision-only models. Damaging brain connections between visual and language areas reverses this pattern, suggesting that human visual perception is modulated by language.

CABLE harnesses cytoarchitectural information such as cell or nuclear shape to infer fiber tracts in the brain of, for example, marmosets, macaques or humans.

A combination of adenovirus-vectored and subunit protein intranasal vaccine enhances immune response against SARS-CoV-2 variants in animal models and humans.

Optical gyromagnetic properties are not observed in natural or metamaterials to date. Here, the authors experimentally demonstrated optical gyromagnetic properties in a magneto-plasmonic metamaterial, realizing the long-sought bi-gyrotropic medium.

This study introduces a kinetic decoupling–recoupling strategy to overcome kinetic limitations in plastic recycling. A tandem catalytic reactor, utilizing zeolite catalysts, converts polyethylene into ethylene and propylene with yields of up to 79%, offering a promising pathway toward efficient closed-loop recycling of polyolefins.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

Ion migration in perovskite solar cells are known to cause hysteresis and instability. Biet al., report a charge extraction layer based on graphene, fullerenes and carbon quantum dots which suppresses ion diffusion and enhances charge carrier diffusion leading to efficient devices with improved stability.

The partial replacement of the A-site by divalent methylenediammonium cations inhibits ion migration and photoinduced halide segregation in wide-bandgap perovskites. Single-junction devices achieve a certified power conversion efficiency of 22.71%, whereas perovskite/Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ tandem devices exhibit an efficiency of 30.13% in a four-terminal architecture.

Primary angle-closure glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness. Here, the authors identify rare deleterious variants in UBOX5 as risk factors and implicate BIP ubiquitination as a potential disease mechanism.

A reinforcement learning-based virtual reality system, implementing a series of sport sessions with coaching, was as effective as standard physical activity in reducing fat mass in adolescents, with positive effects on cognition.

A new artificial intelligence model, DeepSeek-R1, is introduced, demonstrating that the reasoning abilities of large language models can be incentivized through pure reinforcement learning, removing the need for human-annotated demonstrations.

Catalytic asymmetric click reactions of azides and alkynes for chiral triazole synthesis remains a challenge, due to the limited catalytic systems and substrate scope. Herein, the authors report the enantioselective azidation/click cascade reaction of N-propargyl-β-ketoamides via copper catalysis, affording a variety of chiral 1,2,3-triazoles.

The H9N2 avian influenza viruses (AIVs) remain dominant in live poultry markets in China, and H9N2 AIVs with HA-Q226L, PB2-V/K627 and NP-N52 mutations can be transmitted between guinea pigs and between ferrets via direct contact and respiratory droplet.

Yang, Li, Huang, Ji, Luo, Jiang and colleagues report that chemotherapy induces MLKL PARylation and necroptosis in tumour endothelial cells, which in turn affects tumour-associated macrophages and CD8⁺ T cells, promoting immunosuppression and tumorigenesis.

In this Perspective, members of the Aging Biomarker Consortium outline the X-Age Project, an Aging Biomarker Consortium plan for building standardized aging clocks in China. The authors discuss the project roadmap and its aims of decoding aging heterogeneity, detecting accelerated aging early and evaluating geroprotective interventions.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

A recombinant vaccine that targets the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 induces a potent antibody response in immunized mice, rabbits and non-human primates, and protects primates from infection with the virus.

Comparative analyses of rice centromeres from 70 high-quality genomes of the Oryza AA group provide insights into rice centromere evolution and genetic factors that shape these genomic regions.

This study identifies the compound napabucasin as a promising candidate against refractory Helicobacter pylori infections, demonstrating efficacy compared to standard triple therapy in murine infection models, and probing the mechanism of action.

Converting low-cost inorganic chemicals into value-added organic chemicals is a longstanding goal in chemistry. Here the authors describe a silver-catalysed chemoselective carbene N−H insertion reaction, providing access to primary amines from aqueous ammonia and diazo compounds.

BPAN is a rare neurodegenerative disease caused by WDR45 mutations. Here, the authors discover that WDR45 can competitively displace G3BP1 from Caprin-1 to promote stress granule disassembly, a function that is disrupted by BPAN-associated WDR45 mutations.

A full-featured 2D NOR flash memory chip realized by an atomic device to chip technology combines a superior 2D electronic device as a memory core and a powerful CMOS platform to support complex instruction control.

Morphological studies and phylogenetic analyses based on the newly discovered Early Cretaceous eutherian mammal Ambolestes zhoui show that the oldest purported metatherian Sinodelphys is instead a eutherian.

Although SARS-CoV-2 has spread rapidly, the contribution of super-spreading events to transmission is unclear. Here, the authors show that the number of secondary infections arising from an individual infection in the early phase of the outbreak was highly skewed, indicating that super-spreading events occurred.

The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant has quickly become the predominant circulating variant, due to the high transmissibility and immune escape. Here, the authors develop a trimeric protein vaccine candidate and show a sustained humoral immune response, and protection from challenge (Omicron and Delta) in various animal models.

Expanding editing scope while reducing byproducts is now possible for prime editing. Here, authors develop reverse prime editing (rPE), a SpCas9-based tool enabling editing in reverse window with high fidelity and demonstrate its use in inserting therapeutic variants.

Data from two large longitudinal cohorts in China, in which the participants were clustered into five groups based on their metabolic characteristics, show that a signature of microbiome age modulates the risk of cardiovascular disease in metabolically unhealthy individuals.