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This study found higher RSV antibody levels were associated with lower RSV risk in children outside the hospital. An earlier rise in incidence and higher incidence rates were observed among children <5 years compared to older children and adults.

TDP-43 dysfunction in ALS/FTD causes faulty splicing of the KCNQ2 ion channel, leading to toxic protein buildup, neuron hyperactivity and a potential new biomarker and treatment target using RNA-based therapies.

To address an evidence gap for the efficacy of hypertension therapy using dual drug combinations in patients of South Asian origin, a randomized clinical trial conducted in India found that three types of dual drug combinations, each administered in a single pill, had similarly large effects on reducing blood pressure.

A start-up that makes flexible devices to monitor heart rate and blood pressure in premature babies wins The Spinoff Prize.

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).

Authors measure plasma proteins in a cohort of hospitalised patients presenting to the emergency department with suspected infection, revealing six discrete host response clusters that were driven by pathogen exposure and organ dysfunction, and had distinct clinical characteristics, hospital courses, and responses to treatment.

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.

Rebecca Fitzgerald and colleagues used genome sequence analyses to study the progression from premalignant Barrett's esophagus to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and found that the majority of recurrently mutated genes in EAC were also mutated in precursor lesions and that only mutations in TP53 and SMAD4 were stage specific.

Openshaw and colleagues find myeloid inflammation and complement activation signatures in patients with long COVID who were previously hospitalized.

Small cell lung cancer presents high and multi-site metastatic potential. Here, the authors discover that FOXA2, regulated by ASCL1, promotes multi-site metastasis in small cell lung cancer by inducing a fetal neuroendocrine gene expression program.

Analysis of blood pressure data from the Million Veteran Program trans-ethnic cohort identifies common and rare variants, and genetically predicted gene expression across multiple tissues associated with systolic, diastolic and pulse pressure in over 775,000 individuals.

Genetic and testing data from England show that the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 has a transmission advantage over other lineages.

Chronic infection with SARS-CoV-2 leads to the emergence of viral variants that show reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies in an immunosuppressed individual treated with convalescent plasma.

Sera from vaccinated individuals and some monoclonal antibodies show a modest reduction in neutralizing activity against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2; but the E484K substitution leads to a considerable loss of neutralizing activity.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

Sen et al. show that, during human cellular senescence and mouse tissue aging, chromatin alterations promote the initiation of transcription from non-canonical sites and lead to deterioration of cellular health.

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.

Internal tandem duplication mutations in FLT3, known to be associated with a poor prognosis in acute myeloid leukaemia, are now shown to be a valid therapeutic target for the disease.

Base-editing screens of primary T cells reveal genetic variants beneficial to immunotherapies.

Swanton and colleagues present a clonal expression signature, ORACLE, which, in combination with clinicopathological and molecular risk factors, can predict survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma, and they prospectively validate its prognostic value.

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.

COVID-19 can be associated with neurological complications. Here the authors show that markers of brain injury, but not immune markers, are elevated in the blood of patients with COVID-19 both early and months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly in those with brain dysfunction or neurological diagnoses.

Jose Florez, Claudia Langenberg, Erik Ingelsson, Inga Prokopenko, Inês Barroso and colleagues perform large-scale association analyses using the Metabochip to gain further insights into the genetic architecture of glucose regulation. They identify 38 new loci influencing 1 or more glycemic traits and show that many of these loci also modify risk of type 2 diabetes.

Whole-genome sequencing and phenotype data sharing are introduced in a national health system to streamline diagnosis and to discover coding and non-coding variants that cause rare diseases.

The microporous polymer membranes with the introduction of hydrophilic functional groups achieve high selectivity for monovalent/divalent ion separation in electrodialysis processes, providing an alternative approach to lithium extraction with easy scale-up.

Andrew Morris, Mark McCarthy, Michael Boehnke and colleagues report a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for type 2 diabetes, including 26,488 cases and 83,964 controls from populations of European, east Asian, south Asian and Mexican and Mexican American ancestry. They identify seven loci newly associated with type 2 diabetes and examine the genetic architecture of disease across populations.