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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.

By integrating microglial transcriptomics with CSF proteomics, this study reveals protein markers that distinguish early and late Alzheimer’s disease and that have the potential to improve disease tracking and prediction.

Genome-wide analyses identify 30 independent loci associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder, highlighting genetic overlap with other psychiatric disorders and implicating putative effector genes and cell types contributing to its etiology.

Phylogenomic analysis of 7,923 angiosperm species using a standardized set of 353 nuclear genes produced an angiosperm tree of life dated with 200 fossil calibrations, providing key insights into evolutionary relationships and diversification.

Here, integrating ribosome profiling, RNA-seq and proteomics to reveal transcriptional and post-translational regulation in HIV-infected T cells, the authors show that non-AUG translation of viral upstream ORFs elicits distinct immune responses and regulates viral gene expression in a DDX3-dependent manner.

Genotype and exome sequencing of 150,000 participants and whole-genome sequencing of 9,950 selected individuals recruited into the Mexico City Prospective Study constitute a valuable, publicly available resource of non-European sequencing data.

Chaperone-mediated autophagy declines with age in skeletal muscle of humans and mice, leading to muscle dysfunction characterized by impaired calcium homoeostasis and mitochondrial function.

Humanity’s Last Exam, a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, is designed to be an expert-level closed-ended academic benchmark with broad subject coverage.

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias identifies new loci and enables generation of a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

Tau aggregation, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, disrupts neuron structure. Aging weakens chaperone defenses like Hsp90. This study designs β-Hsp90, a small peptide mimicking Hsp90, to prevent Tau aggregation, offering promise for new amyloid disease drugs.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

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.

Here, using ribosomal profiling, the authors characterize the translatome of HIV-1 revealing tens of alternative open reading frames (ARF) that encode conserved viral antigens and show that ARF-derived peptides elicit potent HIV-specific poly-functional immune responses mediated by both CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells.

Most genomics research cohorts are made up of participants of European ancestry, which limits the reach of precision medicine. Here, the authors describe the genetic diversity in the All of Us research program, which is enriched in underrepresented ancestries.

Large genome-wide meta-analysis of clinically diagnosed late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) from 94,437 individuals identifies new LOAD risk loci and implicates Aβ formation, tau protein binding, immune response and lipid metabolism.

Case report of an individual heterozygous for a rare RELN-COLBOS variant that confers resilience, via a gain-of-function mechanism, to Alzheimer’s disease.

Clinical studies have suggested that the therapeutic potential of polyclonal convalescent plasma is highest in the first days of symptoms. Here, the authors present results from a pooled analysis of two clinical trials in COVID-19 outpatients that did not provide conclusive evidence in favor of convalescent plasma.

In an iterative phase 2 trial, patients with metastatic, treatment-refractory, mismatch repair proficient gastrointestinal cancers had responses to neoantigen-reactive tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes but not bulk tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, highlighting the potential for a refined immune cell therapy approach in this patient population.

Steve Brown and colleagues report an analysis of 20 phenotyping tests, including 413 data parameters, across 449 mutant mouse alleles. They identify widespread pleiotropy and assign putative functions to genes that lacked previous phenotypic annotation.

This paper reports integrative molecular analyses of urothelial bladder carcinoma at the DNA, RNA, and protein levels performed as part of The Cancer Genome Atlas project; recurrent mutations were found in 32 genes, including those involved in cell-cycle regulation, chromatin regulation and kinase signalling pathways; chromatin regulatory genes were more frequently mutated in urothelial carcinoma than in any other common cancer studied so far.

A genome-wide study by the Long COVID Host Genetics Initiative identifies an association between the FOXP4 locus and long COVID, implicating altered lung function in its pathophysiology.

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by the accumulation of aggregated tau protein. Here the authors find that Hsp chaperones, which normally protect cell homeostasis, can assemble with co-chaperones in a “multichaperone machinery” to target tau aggregation.

Aberrant liquid-to-gel transition of biological condensates can lead to pathological fibrillization and disease. Here, the authors demonstrate that a small molecule, methylene blue, can decouple gelation from fibrillization of tau liquid droplets.

Proximity between mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum regulates mitochondria fitness and is adversely affected by tissue ischemia. This work reveals that Diaphanous1-Mitofusin2 interaction regulates this proximity and impairs recovery in ischemia.

This study supports neurofilament light chain protein (NfL) in both cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood as an early marker of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease but suggests that NfL in CSF may be better suited than blood for monitoring clinical trial outcomes in symptomatic patients.

GRB 060505 and GRB 060614 were not accompanied by supernova emission down to limits hundreds of times fainter than the archetypal SN 1998bw that accompanied GRB 980425, and fainter than any type Ic supernova ever observed.

Efforts to produce aromatic monomers through catalytic lignin depolymerization were focused on aryl–ether bond cleavage, while the carbon–carbon bonds of a large fraction of aromatic monomers in lignin are difficult to cleave. Here, the authors report a catalytic autoxidation method using manganese and zirconium salts as catalysts to cleave the C–C bonds in lignin-derived dimers and oligomers from pine and poplar.

Ewing sarcoma (EWS) is a rare pediatric bone cancer typically involving the EWSR1-FLI1 fusion. Here the authors perform a genome-wide association study and report three new EWS risk loci that reside near GGAA repeat sequences, and identify candidate genes (RREB1 and KIZ) from eQTL analysis.

Emerging evidence suggests that spontaneous neurotransmitter release contributes to the maintenance of synaptic efficacy. Here the authors selectively reduce spontaneous glutamatergic transmission while leaving the stimulus-evoked responses intact and show that this leads to homeostatic scaling at the postsynaptic side in cultured neurons and alters synaptic plasticity in acute brain slices.

Sven van der Lee, Julie Williams, Gerard Schellenberg and colleagues identify rare coding variants in PLCG2, ABI3 and TREM2 associated with Alzheimer's disease. These genes are highly expressed in microglia and provide additional evidence that the microglia-mediated immune response contributes to the development of Alzheimer's disease.

The Cancer Genome Atlas reports on molecular evaluation of 295 primary gastric adenocarcinomas and proposes a new classification of gastric cancers into 4 subtypes, which should help with clinical assessment and trials of targeted therapies.

Correlations in momentum space between hadrons created by ultrarelativistic proton–proton collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider provide insights into the strong interaction, particularly the short-range dynamics of hyperons—baryons that contain strange quarks.

The Cancer Genome Atlas presents an integrative genome-wide analysis of genetic alterations in 279 head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs), which are classified by human papillomavirus (HPV) status; alterations in EGFR, FGFR, PIK3CA and cyclin-dependent kinases are shown to represent candidate targets for therapeutic intervention in most HNSCCs.

A new study from the eMERGE consortium provides insights on the development of a pipeline for the generation and reporting of polygenic risk scores for ten diseases to diverse populations in a clinical setting.

A single-cell atlas of the human lungs, integrating data from 2.4 million cells from 486 individuals and including samples from healthy and diseased lungs, provides a roadmap for the generation of organ-scale cell atlases.

Schahram Akbarian and colleagues report that mutation of the gene encoding the SETDB1 (KMT1E) histone methyltransferase in mouse neurons leads to dissolution of chromosome conformations and a topologically associated domain at the clustered protocadherin locus. They show that SETDB1 prevents excess CTCF binding and is important for maintaining developmentally important higher-order chromatin organization.

In this largest whole-exome sequencing study of epilepsies to date, the Epi25 Collaborative identified extremely rare variants that confer risk for diverse epilepsy subtypes, highlighting roles in synaptic transmission and neuronal excitability.

This overview of the ENCODE project outlines the data accumulated so far, revealing that 80% of the human genome now has at least one biochemical function assigned to it; the newly identified functional elements should aid the interpretation of results of genome-wide association studies, as many correspond to sites of association with human disease.

The Cancer Genome Atlas consortium reports on their genome-wide characterization of somatic alterations in colorectal cancer; in addition to revealing a remarkably consistent pattern of genomic alteration, with 24 genes being significantly mutated, the study identifies new targets for therapeutic intervention and suggests an important role for MYC-directed transcriptional activation and repression.

The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network report integrated genomic and molecular analyses of 164 squamous cell carcinomas and adenocarcinomas of the oesophagus; they find genomic and molecular features that differentiate squamous and adenocarcinomas of the oesophagus, and strong similarities between oesophageal adenocarcinomas and the chromosomally unstable variant of gastric adenocarcinoma, suggesting that gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma is a single disease entity.

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association analyses identify new risk loci for Parkinson’s disease, and fine-mapping and co-localization analyses implicate candidate genes whose expression is associated with disease susceptibility.