Technology Feature |
Featured
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Outlook |
Could implantable artificial kidneys end the need for dialysis?
Highly engineered mechanical structures could radically improve the quality of life for people with chronic kidney disease.
- Neil Savage
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Article |
Co-opting signalling molecules enables logic-gated control of CAR T cells
Logic gating is used to develop a CAR T cell platform that is highly specific and allows the activity of T cells to be restricted to the encounter of two antigens, thus reducing on-target, off-tumour toxicity.
- Aidan M. Tousley
- , Maria Caterina Rotiroti
- & Robbie G. Majzner
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Perspective |
CAR immune cells: design principles, resistance and the next generation
This Perspective reviews recent developments in the design and use of chimeric antigen receptors in treatments for cancers and other diseases.
- Louai Labanieh
- & Crystal L. Mackall
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Article |
Autonomous self-burying seed carriers for aerial seeding
A study describes a wood-based, three-tailed, biodegradable seed carrier that self-drills into the ground in response to moisture fluctuations with a success rate higher than that of natural self-drilling seeds.
- Danli Luo
- , Aditi Maheshwari
- & Lining Yao
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News |
Disgraced CRISPR-baby scientist’s ‘publicity stunt’ frustrates researchers
He Jiankui refused to answer researchers’ questions about his controversial 2018 experiments at weekend event.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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News |
Trial settles debate over best design for mRNA in COVID vaccines
The biggest defender of ‘unmodified’ mRNA for vaccines against infectious disease has a change of heart.
- Elie Dolgin
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Article
| Open AccessActive eosinophils regulate host defence and immune responses in colitis
Single-cell transcriptomic profiling and functional assays are used to identify subpopulations of eosinophils that are present in the mouse gastrointestinal tract and provide insight into the role of these cells in inflammatory bowel diseases in humans.
- Alessandra Gurtner
- , Costanza Borrelli
- & Isabelle C. Arnold
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Article
| Open AccessProgramming multicellular assembly with synthetic cell adhesion molecules
Synthetic cell adhesion molecules yield customized cell–cell interactions with adhesion properties that are similar to native interactions, and offer abilities for cell and tissue engineering and for systematically studying multicellular organization.
- Adam J. Stevens
- , Andrew R. Harris
- & Wendell A. Lim
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Research Briefing |
Plant-cell machinery for making metabolites transferred to mammalian cells
Supplies of the crucial molecules ATP and NADPH are lacking in many human diseases, but restoring them requires tight control. Using light-powered thylakoid structures from plants to carefully deliver these molecules to the joints of arthritic mice slowed degeneration.
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Article
| Open AccessA plant-derived natural photosynthetic system for improving cell anabolism
Proof of concept of the viability of a plant-derived photosynthetic system based on nanothylakoid units encapsulated in a chondrocyte membrane to enhance cell anabolism in chondrocytes is demonstrated.
- Pengfei Chen
- , Xin Liu
- & Xianfeng Lin
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Nature Index |
Specialized cities
Breakthroughs in the life sciences have boosted US output of high-quality science, but advances in the physical sciences have done the same for China.
- Simon Baker
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Outlook |
Recycling our way to sustainability
A circular economy requires an overhaul of product design, consumption and waste management. Although recycling is dismissed by some as insufficient, it remains an essential process.
- Sarah King
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Outlook |
How to fit clothing into the circular economy
Vast amounts of textiles end up in landfill. Technology to recycle the cellulose in fabric could make clothing more sustainable.
- Neil Savage
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Article |
Real-time bioelectronic sensing of environmental contaminants
The combination of synthetic biology and materials engineering enabled the development of biosensors that produce electrical readouts and real-time detection capabilities.
- Joshua T. Atkinson
- , Lin Su
- & Caroline M. Ajo-Franklin
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News Feature |
Cancer drugs are closing in on some of the deadliest mutations
The protein KRAS, mutated in many cancers, was deemed ‘undruggable’. Now scientists are hoping to save lives with a batch of new compounds that target it.
- Heidi Ledford
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Article |
Programmable RNA sensing for cell monitoring and manipulation
RNA sensing-mediated payload expression provides a specific, versatile, simple and generalizable means of detecting and manipulating animal cells with broad potential applications.
- Yongjun Qian
- , Jiayun Li
- & Z. Josh Huang
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Article
| Open AccessAntibody targeting of E3 ubiquitin ligases for receptor degradation
Membrane-bound E3 ubiquitin ligases RNF43 and ZNRF3 are overexpressed in colorectal cancer, and can be repurposed using proteolysis-targeting antibodies (PROTABs) to selectively degrade cell-surface receptors in tumours.
- Hadir Marei
- , Wen-Ting K. Tsai
- & Felipe de Sousa e Melo
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Outlook |
The destructive power of PROTACs could tackle prostate cancer
Drugs that direct the body’s proteolytic capabilities towards cancer cells might overcome problems of treatment resistance.
- Simon Makin
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News & Views |
Life brought to artificial cells
Can artificial cells be built from basic components? Systems that have complex architectures and functions evocative of natural cells have been prepared by recycling the contents of bacterial cells in synthetic droplets.
- N. Amy Yewdall
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Nature Podcast |
Complex synthetic cells bring scientists closer to artificial cellular life
Researchers craft artificial cells from polymers and bacterial components, and the latest from the Nature Briefing.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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Article |
Living material assembly of bacteriogenic protocells
A bacteriogenic strategy for constructing membrane-bounded, molecularly crowded, and compositionally, structurally and morphologically complex synthetic cells provides opportunities for the fabrication of new synthetic cell modules and augmented living/synthetic cell constructs.
- Can Xu
- , Nicolas Martin
- & Stephen Mann
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Where I Work |
‘Fungi are amazing’: turning mushrooms into vegan leather and meat
Fermentation scientist Chuchu Huang grows mycelium that will become vegan protein.
- Linda Nordling
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News |
Billion-dollar US health agency gets new chief — but its direction remains in limbo
Biologist Renee Wegrzyn will take the reins at ARPA-H as lawmakers battle over its culture and priorities.
- Max Kozlov
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Clinical Briefing |
Precision medicine improves outcomes in metastatic breast cancer
For breast cancers that have spread, a randomized phase II clinical trial shows that using genomic analysis to target therapies can improve outcomes, but only in people with a genetic alteration that has previously been associated with antitumour activity in clinical trials.
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Research Briefing |
Engineered yeast brews precursors of anticancer drug vinblastine
We genetically reprogrammed yeast to produce the alkaloids vindoline and catharanthine — the longest biosynthetic pathway to be transferred from a plant to a microorganism. In principle, similarly engineered yeast strains could produce more than 3,000 other monoterpene indole alkaloids and unnatural analogues.
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Article
| Open AccessA microbial supply chain for production of the anti-cancer drug vinblastine
De novo microbial biosynthesis of vindoline and catharanthine using a highly engineered yeast and in vitro chemical coupling to vinblastine is carried out, positioning yeast as a scalable platform to produce many monoterpene indole alkaloids.
- Jie Zhang
- , Lea G. Hansen
- & Jay D. Keasling
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Outlook |
Wiring up the brain to beat depression
Despite its chequered past, deep-brain electrical stimulation is finally showing some signs of success.
- Liam Drew
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Article
| Open AccessLive-seq enables temporal transcriptomic recording of single cells
Live-seq, a single-cell transcriptome profiling approach that preserves cell viability during RNA extraction using fluidic force microscopy, can address a range of biological questions by transforming scRNA-seq from an end-point to a temporal analysis approach.
- Wanze Chen
- , Orane Guillaume-Gentil
- & Bart Deplancke
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Article |
Recording gene expression order in DNA by CRISPR addition of retron barcodes
Retro-Cascorder, a system for time-ordered recording of transcriptional output, uses retrons as a tag to mediate DNA barcode acquisition in a CRISPR array.
- Santi Bhattarai-Kline
- , Sierra K. Lear
- & Seth L. Shipman
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News Feature |
Unseating big pharma: the radical plan for vaccine equity
Charity failed to provide adequate vaccines for the global south. Now, 15 countries are seeing whether an open-science model can end a dangerous legacy of dependency.
- Amy Maxmen
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Article
| Open AccessWastewater sequencing reveals early cryptic SARS-CoV-2 variant transmission
Emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern were detected early and multiple cases of virus spread not captured by clinical genomic surveillance were identified using high-resolution wastewater and clinical sequencing.
- Smruthi Karthikeyan
- , Joshua I. Levy
- & Rob Knight
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Article
| Open AccessA time-resolved, multi-symbol molecular recorder via sequential genome editing
A DNA memory device, DNA Typewriter, uses sequential prime editing to record the order of multiple cellular events.
- Junhong Choi
- , Wei Chen
- & Jay Shendure
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Spotlight |
Unleashing the power of big data to guide precision medicine in China
Personalized treatments and large population studies in China are helping to uncover patterns for a range of conditions, from autism to hereditary hearing loss.
- Yvaine Ye
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News |
PhD pay, COVID’s health burden — the week in infographics
Nature highlights three key graphics from the week in science and research.
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Research Highlight |
Silk imitates mother of pearl for a tough, eco-friendly material
Proteins that make up silk fibres can be formed into a material with a structure similar to that of the lustrous lining of oyster shells.
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News & Views |
A lab-on-a-chip that takes the chip out of the lab
A microfluidic system achieves miniaturization without the need for extra equipment, bringing chip-based devices closer to mainstream commercial reality, with a framework that could be widely applied to diagnostics.
- Mazher Iqbal Mohammed
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Article
| Open AccessThe mosaic oat genome gives insights into a uniquely healthy cereal crop
Assembly of the hexaploid oat genome and its diploid and tetraploid relatives clarifies the evolutionary history of oat and allows mapping of genes for agronomic traits.
- Nadia Kamal
- , Nikos Tsardakas Renhuldt
- & Nick Sirijovski
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Article |
Mitochondrial base editor induces substantial nuclear off-target mutations
- Zhixin Lei
- , Haowei Meng
- & Chengqi Yi
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News & Views |
Tailor-made enzymes poised to propel plastic recycling into a new era
Waste streams of the plastic poly(ethylene terephthalate) that can be recycled into material suitable for food packaging are limited, creating a shortfall of feedstocks. An enzyme has been discovered that widens the feedstock options.
- Eggo U. Thoden van Velzen
- & Giusy Santomasi
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Article |
Machine learning-aided engineering of hydrolases for PET depolymerization
Untreated, postconsumer-PET from 51 different thermoformed products can all be almost completely degraded by FAST-PETase in 1 week and PET can be resynthesized from the recovered monomers, demonstrating recycling at the industrial scale.
- Hongyuan Lu
- , Daniel J. Diaz
- & Hal S. Alper
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Research Highlight |
Bacteria spin sugar for a greener and better plastic
Genetic modification equips microbes to make precursor molecules for a nylon-like polymer with a smaller carbon footprint.
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News |
Biotech firm announces results from first US trial of genetically modified mosquitoes
Oxitec reports that its insects behaved as planned — but a larger trial is needed to learn whether they can reduce wild mosquito populations.
- Emily Waltz
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Article |
Targeting Xist with compounds that disrupt RNA structure and X inactivation
A molecule identified in a screen for compounds that bind the non-coding mouse RNA Xist blocks Xist-dependent X-chromosome inactivation, demonstrating the utility of this approach for identifying drugs that target RNA.
- Rodrigo Aguilar
- , Kerrie B. Spencer
- & Jeannie T. Lee
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Article |
AAV-delivered suppressor tRNA overcomes a nonsense mutation in mice
The feasibility of adeno-associated-virus-delivered nonsense suppressor tRNAs operating on premature termination codons (AAV-NoSTOP) is explored to restore gene function, using a mouse model of mucopolysaccharidosis type I for proof of concept.
- Jiaming Wang
- , Yue Zhang
- & Dan Wang
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Research Highlight |
How spirulina could help make smoothies with a kick
Scientists genetically engineer the widely consumed microorganism to produce protein-based pharmaceuticals.
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Article |
A genome-scale screen for synthetic drivers of T cell proliferation
A genome-scale gain-of-function screen using overexpression of nearly 12,000 open reading frames (ORFs) identifies positive regulators of human T cell function and suggests that ORF-based screens could be applied clinically to improve T cell therapies.
- Mateusz Legut
- , Zoran Gajic
- & Neville E. Sanjana
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Career Q&A |
Boosting banana nutrition for Ugandans
Government scientist Priver Namanya Bwesigye’s research career is focused on genetic engineering and Uganda’s staple food.
- Christopher Bendana
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News |
Major CRISPR patent decision won’t end tangled dispute
Fights over who invented the gene-editing technology are becoming more complex, and could carry on for years.
- Heidi Ledford
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