News & Comment

Selecting omic biomarkers using both their effect size and their differential status significance (i.e., selecting the “volcano-plot outer spray”) has long been equally biologically relevant and statistically troublesome. However, recent proposals are paving the way to resolving this dilemma.

Professor Sabine Oertelt-Prigione has been working in the field of sex and gender-sensitive research for the last 15 years. Her current work is focused on trying to understand how sex and gender-sensitive medicine can be successfully implemented in research and practice as well as methods to investigate gender in medical research. Dr. Brandon Turner is a resident physician in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has conducted and is involved in numerous studies looking to evaluate race and ethnicity reporting and representation in clinical trials. In this interview for Nature Communications, Sabine Oertelt-Prigione, and Brandon Turner share their knowledge about the biases that can occur in clinical trials and how they can be minimized.

Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, with over 25% of these occurring in the African region. Multi-drug resistant strains which do not respond to first-line antibiotics continue to emerge, putting at risk numerous public health strategies which aim to reduce incidence and mortality. Here, we speak with Professor Valerie Mizrahi, world-leading researcher and former director of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town, regarding the tuberculosis burden in South Africa. We discuss the challenges faced by researchers, the lessons that need to be learnt and current innovations to better understand the overall response required to accelerate progress.

Africa is undergoing a demographic transition¹ that has led to significant reductions in the number of individuals living in extreme poverty, and to positive shifts in related health outcomes, across its diverse populations². Building on these successes requires a consideration of intersecting factors that impact health metrics, which is the focus of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals³. To support researchers in their efforts towards reaching these goals, Nature Communications, Communications Medicine and Scientific Reports invite submissions of papers that advance our understanding of all aspects of health in Africa.

The emergence of high-entropy materials has inspired the exploration of novel materials in diverse technologies. In electrochemical energy storage, high-entropy design has shown advantageous impacts on battery materials such as suppressing undesired short-range order, frustrating energy landscape, decreasing volumetric change and reducing the reliance on critical metals. This comment addresses the definition and potential improper use of the term “high entropy” in the context of battery materials design, highlights the unique properties of high-entropy materials in battery applications, and outlines the remaining challenges in the synthesis, characterization, and computational modeling of high-entropy battery materials.

Combining ocean predictions with physiological understanding yields the ability to forecast habitat multiple years into the future for a wide variety of marine organisms. However, several challenges remain before we see the regular production and use of marine habitat forecasts.

Innovative pharmacogenomic approaches (genetic variation related to medication response) are needed to reduce disease and disparities in Indigenous communities. We support community-based pharmacogenomics research, inclusive of Indigenous values and priorities, to improve the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples.

Synthetic optical materials have been recently employed as a powerful platform for the emulation of topological phenomena in wave physics. Topological phases offer exciting opportunities, not only for fundamental physics demonstrations, but also for practical technologies. Yet, their impact has so far been primarily limited to their claimed enhanced robustness. Here, we clarify the role of robustness in topological photonic systems, and we discuss how topological photonics may offer a wider range of important opportunities in science and for practical technologies, discussing emergent and exciting research directions.

The African continent demonstrated decisive leadership throughout its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging lessons learned from previous outbreaks and acting quickly to limit the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We propose a framework to build on these successes that calls for greater collaboration between African leaders, and greater inclusion of African voices in the global health ecosystem.

While the research community continues to develop novel proposals for intrinsic biocontainment of genetically engineered organisms, translation to real-world deployment faces several challenges.

Orphan crops hold the potential to diversify our food systems. Considering their unique characteristics, our deep understanding of major crops, and the availability of modern genomic tools, taking a different research path from what major crops have gone through could accelerate the genetic improvement of orphan crops.

Underutilised crops or orphan crops are important for diversifying our food systems towards food and nutrition security. Here, the authors discuss how the development of underutilised crop genomic resource should align with their breeding and capacity building strategies, and leverage advances made in major crops.

On the 12th of April 2010, Nature Communications published its first editorial and primary research articles. The topics of these first 11 papers represented the multidisciplinary nature of the journal: from DNA damage to optics alongside material science to energy and including polymer chemistry. We have spoken with the corresponding authors of some of these very first papers and asked them about their experience of publishing in this then new journal and how they see Nature Communications now.

Photocatalysis, as a powerful tool for synthetic transformations, has the potential to impact industrial applications. In this commentary, we discuss the challenges and requirements with respect to reproducing published photocatalytic reactions in the (life science) industry.

As part of our tenth-anniversary celebrations, the editorial team at Nature Communications wanted to hear from early career researchers who have published with us. We asked the early career researchers to tell us in an essay what is amazing about the research question(s) that drove them and the highs—and lows—of the journey from hypothesis to publication.

As part of our tenth anniversary celebrations, the editorial team at Nature Communications wanted to hear from early career researchers who have published with us. We asked the early career researchers to tell us in an essay what is amazing about the research question(s) that drove them and the highs—and lows—of the journey from hypothesis to publication.

Climate change is exacerbating challenges both for global food production and from its environmental impacts. Sustainable and socially responsible solutions for future world-wide food security are urgently needed.

As part of our tenth anniversary celebrations, the editorial team at Nature Communications wanted to hear from early career researchers who have published with us. We asked the early career researchers to tell us in an essay what is amazing about the research question(s) that drove them and the highs—and lows—of the journey from hypothesis to publication.

As part of our tenth anniversary celebrations, the editorial team at Nature Communications wanted to hear from early career researchers who have published with us. We asked the early career researchers to tell us in an essay what is amazing about the research question(s) that drove them and the highs—and lows—of the journey from hypothesis to publication.

Wearable devices can provide personalised medicine at the point of need, potentially increasing access to health services and therefore improving health equity. Here the authors discuss their experiences developing wearable devices for vulnerable patient populations, including neonates and pregnant individuals.