Review Articles

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  • Plants exhibit reproducible timing of developmental events at multiple scales, from switches in cell identity to maturation of the whole plant. Using simplified models to convey key concepts, we review how timing mechanisms interact with the environment to control cyclical and progressive developmental transitions.

    • Enrico Coen
    • Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Chemical recycling of plastic enables renewed production of pristine materials, but generally comes at a high energy cost. This review focuses on light-driven approaches for chemically recycling and upcycling plastic waste, with emphasis on reduced energy consumption and selective transformations of challenging to recycle backbone structures.

    • Laura Wimberger
    • Gervase Ng
    • Cyrille Boyer
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Despite the enormous progress in the field of giant lipid vesicles, their use for in vivo biomedical applications is limited. Here, the authors discuss red blood cells as inspiration for enhancing those vesicles, investigating the required cellular features and the corresponding technical hurdles.

    • Jorik Waeterschoot
    • Willemien Gosselé
    • Xavier Casadevall i Solvas
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • This review focuses on recent advances in on-chip platforms for patient-like in vitro modeling of the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases as well as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The authors advocate for broader usage of these human-relevant models in the academic and pharmaceutical fields.

    • Sarnai Amartumur
    • Huong Nguyen
    • Chaejeong Heo
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Memristors hold promise for massively-parallel computing at low power. Aguirre et al. provide a comprehensive protocol of the materials and methods for designing memristive artificial neural networks with the detailed working principles of each building block and the tools for performance evaluation.

    • Fernando Aguirre
    • Abu Sebastian
    • Mario Lanza
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage, with its multisystem effects, presents a substantial challenge to clinicians. Here, the authors show the necessity for comprehensive multidisciplinary care and the urgent need for largescale studies to validate standardised treatment protocols for improved outcomes.

    • Suneesh Thilak
    • Poppy Brown
    • Tonny Veenith
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Engineering the form and function of root systems and their associated microbiota could provide a means to mitigate adverse climate-driven effects. Here, the authors review the recent developments in plant and rhizobacterial synthetic biology and highlight engineering targets for applications in root systems and rhizosphere.

    • Carin J. Ragland
    • Kevin Y. Shih
    • José R. Dinneny
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Genetic risk variants for autoimmune diseases are largely enriched in T cell-specific regulatory regions. In this review, Raychaudhuri and colleagues summarise the findings of recent studies evaluating the genetic regulation of T cell molecular and functional traits in these diseases.

    • Kaitlyn A. Lagattuta
    • Hannah L. Park
    • Soumya Raychaudhuri
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • As synthetic biology permeates society, the signal processing circuits in engineered living systems must be customized to meet practical demands. In this review, the authors outline design strategies for the DNA, RNA, and protein-level circuits and the hybrid “multi-level” circuits.

    • Yuanli Gao
    • Lei Wang
    • Baojun Wang
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • In this Review article, the authors discuss emerging efforts to build ethical governance frameworks for data science health research in Africa and the opportunities to advance these through investments by African governments and institutions, international funding organizations and collaborations for research and capacity development.

    • Clement A. Adebamowo
    • Shawneequa Callier
    • Sally N. Adebamowo
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Geroscience is becoming a major hope for preventing age-related diseases and loss of function by targeting biological mechanisms of aging. This article reports a discussion of a research Task Force on the challenges posed by the clinical research in Geroscience so that future gerotherapeutic clinical trials can be conducted successfully.

    • Yves Rolland
    • Felipe Sierra
    • Alex Zhavoronkov
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Positron emission tomography is widely used to diagnose and monitor different disease states and interest in the technique has led to the demand for the development of new method for radiolabelling. Here the authors review the recent progress in the development of new PET probes.

    • Jian Rong
    • Ahmed Haider
    • Steven H. Liang
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Ebrahimi and Samanta review the key advances in the chemical and structural modification of proteins that have enabled their rise as indispensable tools in medicine and outline emerging protein engineering strategies that can potentially unlock structures with improved therapeutic properties.

    • Sasha B. Ebrahimi
    • Devleena Samanta
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • The lack of a standardized approach for the characterization of the performance of 2D photodetectors represents an important obstacle towards their industrialization. Here, the authors propose practical guidelines to characterize their figures of merit and analyse common situations where their performance can be misestimated.

    • Fang Wang
    • Tao Zhang
    • Weida Hu
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • In this Review article, the authors discuss the potential of microorganisms as a solution to the challenges faced by our food system. Engineered microorganisms can be used to produce enhanced foods and ingredients in a sustainable manner. The technical, economical, and societal limitations are also discussed together with the current and future perspectives.

    • Alicia E. Graham
    • Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Naturally evolved genomes tend to be unnecessarily large and redundant, and are not optimised for biotechnological or research applications. In this review, the authors explore genome minimization and re-functionalisation approaches, and discuss their potential for industrial applications.

    • Xin Xu
    • Felix Meier
    • Thomas C. Williams
    Review ArticleOpen Access