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The mechanisms underlying increased cardiometabolic risk from cancer treatment in childhood cancer survivors remain to be explored. Here, epigenome-wide analysis in childhood cancer survivors identified DNA methylation sites that mediate treatment-related cardiometabolic risks and are associated with inflammatory and metabolic pathways.

Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study reveal declines in chronic respiratory disease mortality between 1990 and 2023—especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—but the burdens on people affected remain substantial.

The authors present DNA-Diffusion, a generative AI framework that designs synthetic regulatory elements with tunable cell-type specificity. Experimental validation demonstrates their ability to reactivate AXIN2 expression, a leukemia-protective gene, in its native genomic context.

cellSTAAR advances noncoding rare variant association analysis by integrating single-cell genomics data.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

Previous reports suggested systemic bile acids are associated with the onset of type 1 diabetes. Here authors identified age-dependent trajectories of bile acids in children who developed islet autoantibodies during a longitudinal study.

Panoptes, an anti-phage defence system against virus-mediated immune suppression, is revealed.

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.

A device architecture based on indium arsenide–aluminium heterostructures with a gate-defined superconducting nanowire allows single-shot interferometric measurement of fermion parity and demonstrates an assignment error probability of 1%.

Dense calcium imaging combined with co-registered high-resolution electron microscopy reconstruction of the brain of the same mouse provide a functional connectomics map of tens of thousands of neurons of a region of the primary cortex and higher visual areas.

mRNA vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 also sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

In an updated report on 70 laboratory-confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 cases in the USA between March 2024 and May 2025, the absence of human-to-human transmission to date was confirmed, with no known mutations of resistance to neuroaminidase inhibitors.

Using viral barcode tracing to detect interactions between glioblastoma cells and non-malignant astrocytes in patient samples, investigators discovered a pathway that reduces tumour-specific immunity and identified potential therapeutic targets.

An integrated analysis of de novo and inherited coding variants in 42,607 individuals with autism spectrum disorder identifies 60 risk genes of which five have not previously been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Here, the authors present Paraphase, a HiFi-based informatics method that resolves highly similar genes located in segmental duplications. They apply Paraphase to 316 paralogous genes and summarize extensive genetic diversity across populations.

Nature Biotechnology's readers select some of biotech's most remarkable and influential personalities from the past 10 years.

Gut microbes rely on nutrient exchange for survival, but these cross-feeding interactions remain poorly characterized. Here, Marcelino et al. present a metabolite-exchange scoring system derived from metagenome-scale metabolic models, designed to identify the potential microbial cross-feeding interactions most affected in human diseases.

Glucocorticoids, such as dexamethasone, are used as anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs, however patients may exhibit resistance or side effects. Here the authors propose that a dexamethasone related neutrophil-specific DNA methylation index can be used as a marker of glucocorticoid exposure and response and as a prognostic factor in brain tumor survival.

What is the state of trust in scientists around the world? To answer this question, the authors surveyed 71,922 respondents in 68 countries and found that trust in scientists is moderately high.

Insecticide resistance in mosquitoes threatens the success of malaria control programmes. This study found that in different populations of a malaria mosquito species in West Africa, resistance is associated with different genes or different mutations in the same set of genes.

MultiSTAAR provides a general and flexible statistical framework for functionally informed multi-trait rare variant analysis of biobank-scale sequencing studies by jointly analyzing multiple traits and incorporating annotation information.

Literature produced inconsistent findings regarding the links between extreme weather events and climate policy support across regions, populations and events. This global study offers a holistic assessment of these relationships and highlights the role of subjective attribution.

Carbon dioxide removal technologies may be needed to meet climate targets. In this study, national surveys and deliberative workshops in the United States and the United Kingdom show that carbon dioxide removal is perceived as too slow to address the immediate climate crisis while not addressing the root causes of climate change.

Although progress in the coverage of routine measles vaccination in children in low- and middle-income countries was made during 2000–2019, many countries remain far from the goal of 80% coverage in all districts by 2019.

Scientists deploy networking, collaboration and long-term thinking to win private donor dollars.

Fecci and colleagues show that tumor cells having lost MHC-I, a major mechanism of immune escape, are amenable to killing by CD8⁺ T cells through an MHC-I-independent, alternative pathway via NKG2D and NKG2DL interaction and granzyme.

A personalized letter from the Medical Examiner-Coroner in Los Angeles County has proven effective at reducing opioid and benzodiazepine prescribing. Here the authors show that the introduction of if/when-then planning prompts in to the letter further reduced opioid prescribing by 12.85% and benzodiazepine prescribing by 8.32%; they were most effective for clinicians with multiple patient deaths due to accidental opioid-related overdose.

The molecular mechanisms underlying malignant transformation of the Schwann lineage in Schwann cell tumours remain to be explored. Here, the authors suggest that NF2 inactivation leads to PAK activation leading to NF1-mutant Schwann cell tumour de-differentiation and resistance to selumetinib.

Analyses of genome and exome sequencing data identify rare coding and structural variants associated with atrial fibrillation and highlight genetic links between atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathies.

Accurate phenotyping is key to deciphering behavior. Here, authors show the utility of the software package DeepOF in supervised and unsupervised identification of distinct individual and social behavioral patterns following chronic social stress.

Analyses of in vivo models, cell lines and patient-derived samples show that apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing catalytic subunit 3B (APOBEC3B) not only restrains lung tumor initiation but also that its upregulation is associated with resistance to targeted therapies. This study highlights the complex and context-dependent role of APOBEC3B in lung cancer.

Analysis of whole-genome sequences of 25,465 individuals of European ancestry shows that rare variants contribute substantially to the heritability of height and body mass index.

Kumar and colleagues report cryo-EM structures of Arabidopsis O-fucosyltransferase SPINDLY in its apo and GDP-fucose bound states, revealing distinct active-site features enabling GDP-fucose recognition and surprisingly dynamic conformations that regulate its enzymatic activity.

Micropillar patterns causing changes in the nuclear and cellular morphologies of human mesenchymal stromal cells influence the conformation of the cells’ chromatin and their osteogenic differentiation in vitro and in mice.

Three-photon in vivo imaging provides access to medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and spinal cord in mice at up to 1.7 mm depth of neurons, dendrites, spines, astrocytes and microglia.

Oxygen in shallow shelf waters rose linearly with atmospheric oxygen in the Neoproterozoic era, potentially driving the first radiation of marine animals, but widespread ocean oxygenation came later, according to reconstructions of oxygen levels and marine productivity.

Phase-resolved mid-infrared observations from JWST of the hot gas giant WASP-43b detect a day–night difference of 659 ± 19 K. Comparison with climate models shows that the observations are compatible with cloudy skies, at least on the nightside, and the lack of methane detection suggests the presence of disequilibrium chemistry.

Characterising the response to SARS-CoV-2 post vaccination is critical in the appraisement of the induced immune response, performance and protective potential. Here the authors present data from a phase 4 clinical trial in autoimmune rheumatic disease patients 6 months post second dose of Sinovac-CoronaVac inactivated vaccine that show a marked reduction in antibody particularly in males or those under treatment with immune targeting therapies but saw no rise in COVID-19 disease.

Non-human primates are important animal models for studying SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, Salguero et al. directly compare rhesus and cynomolgus macaques and show that both species represent COVID-19 disease of mild clinical cases, and provide a lung histopathology scoring system.

Rapid extracellular antigen profiling of a cohort of 194 individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 uncovers diverse autoantibody responses that affect COVID-19 disease severity, progression and clinical and immunological characteristics.

Individuals with long COVID show marked biological changes in cortisol and immune factors relative to convalescent populations.