Comment in 2024

Organoid intelligence towards biocomputing may provide insights into the neuroscience of learning and memory, and offer a biohybrid form of information processing. Advances in brain region-specific organoid engineering, sensors and signal-processing tools, integration of artificial intelligence, and miniaturization will pave the way for organoid intelligence to make an impact in biomedicine and beyond.

Viruses can be engineered to deliver nucleic acids, peptides and proteins for plant trait reprogramming. Building on market approvals and sales of recombinant virus-based biopharmaceuticals for veterinary and human medicine, similar innovations may be applied to agriculture for transient or heritable biodesign of crops with improved performance and sustainable production.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is finding its way into healthcare. Therefore, medical students need to be trained to be ‘bilingual’ in both medical and computational terminology and concepts to allow them to understand, implement and evaluate AI-related research.

Wound healing mechanisms differ depending on the sex, particularly in chronic wounds. Therefore, sex should be considered in the design of nanomedicine- and biomaterials-based wound healing therapies, both in preclinical and clinical testing.

Neuromodulation and brain–computer interfaces are rapidly evolving fields with distinct origins but with the shared goal of improving the lives of people with neurological and psychiatric disorders or injuries. Their increasing technological overlap provides new opportunities for collaborative work and rapid progress in neurotechnology.

The clinical translation of therapeutics on the basis of human gut microorganisms is hampered by our limited knowledge of how microbes survive and adapt to fluctuating conditions in the gut. The systematic exploration of gut microbiome survival strategies and trade-offs will thus enable the design of more efficient microbiome-based interventions.

What does global health equity mean? In bioengineering, ‘equity’ is often interpreted as global ‘access’ to technologies, thereby neglecting wider structural inequalities. Here we suggest that concepts of equity need to be expanded to incorporate principles of equitable representation and recognition within the innovation ecosystem.

Micro- and nanorobots present a promising approach for navigating within the body and eliminating biofilm infections. Their motion can be remotely controlled by external fields and tracked by clinical imaging. They can mechanically disrupt the biofilm matrix and kill the dormant bacterial cells synergistically, thereby improving the effectiveness of biofilm eradication.

The cryopreservation of biological samples is hindered by ice formation and the need to maintain samples under cryogenic conditions during storage and transportation. Silicification offers a simple method for preserving life within refractory, amorphous silicon dioxide, which is analogous to vitreous ice but does not melt and thereby avoids cold-chain issues.

Harnessing the potential of microbiota analysis creates new opportunities in diagnosing diseases, improving treatment efficacy, reducing treatment complications and preventing disease recurrence. However, microbiota analysis has not yet been integrated into clinical management workflows. Here, we discuss crucial characteristics of microbiota analysis systems for clinical translation.

Open-source design of medical devices, following the concept of frugal engineering, provides unrestricted descriptions of technical details, allowing the low-cost and local fabrication of devices to reduce global inequities in healthcare.

The current drug development pipeline is time-consuming, costly and inefficient. To better model interactions between pharmaceuticals and human physiology and, thus, increase the likelihood of drug success in clinical trials, the effect of pharmacokinetic drug profiles on cellular behaviour should be tested early in drug development.