Science in 2023: what to expect this year

Noah Baker

Hello, and welcome to the first Nature Podcast of 2023. In this episode, we're going to do something a bit different from the regular show, which is that we're going to spend some time looking forward. We've started a new year and there's new science, as always, to come. I’m Noah Baker, and joining me this week is a new voice that you won't have heard on the podcast yet, Miryam Naddaf. Miryam, how are you?

Miryam Naddaf

Hi, Noah. I'm good, thanks. How are you?

Noah Baker

I'm very well. Now, you wrote an article at the end of last year trying to list out some of the key science events to watch for in 2023, and this is going to span everything from Moon landings to vaccines. We'll try to cover as much as we can. Before we get going, I would love it if you could tell people who you are and what it is that you do at Nature.

Miryam Naddaf

I am a biomedical scientist originally and trained in neuroscience. And I started working at Nature as a science reporter in October 2022. So, it's been three months and I’m really happy to be here.

Noah Baker

Fantastic, so, I think it'd be great to start, as you do in your article, with some vaccines. So, tell us, what should people be looking out for?

Miryam Naddaf

So, we've heard a lot about mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic and in 2023, we are expecting a bunch of new vaccines. A couple of them will target malaria, tuberculosis and genital herpes. These are all developed by the pharmaceutical company BioNTech. BioNTech is also collaborating with Pfizer and will launch a vaccine for shingles. And Moderna in the US will also launch some mRNA vaccines for genital herpes and shingles.

Noah Baker

And one thing people listening to this will probably be asking straight away is there are all these mRNA vaccines coming up for conditions like malaria, like tuberculosis, like herpes, but what's next for COVID because we shouldn't forget that COVID is still not over?

Miryam Naddaf

We are expecting also a new mRNA vaccine. Pfizer and BioNTech started their clinical trial already in November 2022, and they developed this vaccine that will target the original SARS-CoV-2, two variants of Omicron, plus four variants of the influenza, the common influenza virus. So, this is really interesting.

Noah Baker

Absolutely. I remember talking to our colleague Ewen Callaway about the potential of a combo vaccine, God, years ago. It feels like years ago. It probably was years ago at this point. And it's really fascinating to see this coming up. And as well as these conventional mRNA vaccines, we're also likely to see things like fast-acting nasal sprays, which are also in development, but they're a little bit further off than 2023.

Miryam Naddaf

They are. They are still being tested on animals. They have not reached the human trial level yet. But we will expect to see some more development when it comes to the animal trials. But I highly doubt that we will see human trials in 2023.

Noah Baker

Okay, so, that's vaccines – obviously going to be a lot to look out for. Let’s do a bit of a sharp left turn and go from tiny vaccines to gigantic space. Let's look to the stars. One of the big stories of last year in terms of stargazing was JWST, the new Hubble replacement telescope that's sitting in space right now and taking the most spectacular images which have captured all of us throughout the last year. And JWST will continue to do that, but there are other telescopes that are also going to be capturing some fantastic images through 2023. Let's start with Euclid. Tell us a little bit about that.

Miryam Naddaf

So, the Euclid space telescope is developed by the European Space Agency, and it is expected to orbit the Sun for six years and capture photos to create a 3D map of the Universe. And this telescope is expected to blast in 2023. There's also the JAXA X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, which will also orbit the Earth and will detect some X-ray radiation from distant stars and galaxies.

Noah Baker

So, we have Japanese missions, we have European missions. And then we've also got the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which is also due to start taking images in 2023.

Miryam Naddaf

We've talked about telescopes that go out to the outer space, but there are also a couple of telescopes that will start to take images on Earth. So, we've got the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, and they will start taking images in July 2023 and will scan the entire southern sky in just three nights.

Noah Baker

And also, there's a massive steerable telescope in Xinjiang in China. Now, this is a huge disc that's going to be able to look at a lot of the stars at the same time, and that's also going to be taking some pictures in 2023.

Miryam Naddaf

Correct, so the Xinjiang Qitai Radio Telescope in China will be switched on in 2023, and it will observe about 75% of the stars in the sky at any given time.

Noah Baker

Okay, so, I think we should stick with space, but let's move on to some different missions – Moon missions. Of course, last year in 2022, there was a lot of discussion about Artemis, but that's not the only Moon-based mission that is in the works, and 2023 is going to see another slew of Moon missions. Give us the rundown.

Miryam Naddaf

So, the day that Artemis landed on Earth, three other missions were launched. One of them was the United Arab Emirates’ Rashid rover. Another one was NASA's Lunar Flashlight and the Japanese HAKUTO-R Mission 1, and the Japanese mission will attempt a soft landing on the Moon in April.

Noah Baker

I really love that scientists say soft landing just to distinguish between hard landing, which is really just, crash, is what they mean by that. But this one is going to land without breaking. And then there's also the next in the series from the Indian space agency. Tell us a bit about that.

Miryam Naddaf

So, the Indian Space Research Organisation will launch their third Moon exploration mission, which is called Chandrayaan-3, and it will land near the south pole in the Moon in 2023. The past Moon exploration missions from the Indian Space Research Organisation have actually failed, so this is really exciting to see if they could land on the Moon this time in 2023.

Noah Baker

And then, of course, one of the more mad things that's going to be happening in 2023, in my personal view, is that we're going to see a civilian trip to the Moon. People are going on a Moon vacation in 2023. Tell us about that.

Miryam Naddaf

Eleven people will embark on a six-day private space flight aboard the SpaceX rocket Starship in 2023 on the first civilian trip to the Moon, which is really exciting.

Noah Baker

God, it feels like space tourism has ramped up from popping up into the stratosphere briefly through to Moon visits in a tiny amount of time. Okay, and one more thing to mention before we leave our Moon talk, which is to move a little bit further abroad than our little Moon over to some much further away moons – Jupiter's icy moons. ESA also has a mission to squeeze in here.

Miryam Naddaf

Indeed, so, in April 2023, ESA will launch its Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, which will aim to study the environment on the giant gas planet and three of its moons.

Noah Baker

Okay, and moving on, I suggest we stick with physics and let's move towards the next step in the standard model. Now, this is something that perennially we will talk about. There is always excitement about the next thing that's going to move us potentially beyond the standard model, or is it? Who knows? In 2022, the first results from the Muon g — 2 experiments came out, which were in April. And there are more precise results expected to be published in 2023. But there are other observatories as well that are looking to try to better comprehend the standard model or perhaps even push beyond it. That includes observatories in China and also in Sweden. Tell us a little bit more about those.

Miryam Naddaf

In Sweden, we are expecting the European Spallation Source facility to open its doors to the first researchers this year. This pan-European project will generate intense neutron beams to study the structure of materials, using the most powerful linear proton accelerator that has ever been built.

Noah Baker

There's also the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory in southern China, which of course is going to be observing neutrinos.

Miryam Naddaf

Yes, the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory in China will use a detector kept at 700 metres underground to precisely measure the oscillation of these particles, the neutrinos.

Noah Baker

Okay, before we move on to some more bio stories, there's an interesting addition that you've squeezed in at the end of your article, which is all about the world's first nuclear waste storage facility, which is going to begin operating next year on an island off the southwest coast of Finland.

Miryam Naddaf

So, the Finnish government approved construction of a deep-underground nuclear waste storage facility back in 2015, which will safely dispose of spent nuclear fuel. The facility is expected to open in 2023 in Olkiluoto, an island just off the southwest coast of Finland.

Noah Baker

So, it's going to open on this island and the goal is to bury nuclear waste in canisters where it can be stored for several hundred thousand years, so that the radiation levels can drop naturally to a level which would be harmless.

Miryam Naddaf

Yes, so up to 6,500 tonnes of radioactive uranium will be packed in copper canisters, which will be then covered with clay and buried inside tunnels of granite bedrock, and these will be kept at 400 metres underground. And we can hope that within several hundred thousand years, the radiation levels will become harmless.

Noah Baker

Okay, so, as I mentioned, I'm going to move back to some bio stories now. So, we have drugs for Alzheimer's and we have CRISPR therapies. But before we get to those, I'm going to loop back sort of pandemic-wards, and that's with the WHO’s new pathogen watchlist. Now, this is something the WHO has published before, and it's expected to publish a revised list of priority pathogens this year. Now, these are pathogens that the WHO deems important for us to watch for the potential of creating outbreaks, epidemics, even pandemics in the future. And there's obviously a lot of real attention being paid to this given recent experience. What are we expecting to see on this watchlist?

Miryam Naddaf

So, the World Health Organization published a list of priority pathogens back in 2017, but this year, we are expecting a revised list. And about 300 scientists will review the evidence from over 25 virus families and bacteria to determine which of these pathogens need urgent research and investment. The current list actually includes COVID-19, Ebola virus, Lassa fever, the Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome. It also includes the Zika and Nipah and henipaviral diseases.

Noah Baker

And of course, the goal here is to try to focus the biomedical community to develop vaccines and treatments and tests early so that we're better prepared.

Miryam Naddaf

Indeed, they basically want to construct research and development roadmaps for each of these priority pathogens so they can identify the knowledge gaps in research and set priorities to guide the development of vaccines and also for diagnostic tests.

Noah Baker

I hesitate to say some lessons learnt from the last few years, but perhaps some lessons learnt from the last few years. I'm going to choose to feel hopeful about these future developments. Okay, and on the note of hopeful, let's talk about some new therapies coming out in 2023. The first is potentially the first approval of a CRISPR gene-editing therapy and now that's specifically going to be a therapy to treat β-thalassaemia and sickle-cell disease. Tell us a little bit about that and when we might expect to see some approvals.

Miryam Naddaf

So, we've seen, back in 2022, the results of the clinical trials that use the CRISPR-Cas9 system to treat β-thalassaemia and sickle-cell disease. These are two genetic blood disorders. And this treatment called exa-cel is developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Boston and CRISPR Therapeutics in Cambridge. And Vertex Pharmaceuticals is expected to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration approval in March, and then we will hear if this exa-cel treatment will become available to people with β-thalassaemia or sickle-cell disease.

Noah Baker

Okay, and speaking of approvals, there's another drug which scientists and many people around the world will be watching closely that is currently sitting with regulators, and that's a drug to treat Alzheimer's. Now, tell us a little bit about that.

Miryam Naddaf

This is lecanemab. It is a new monoclonal antibody that has been developed by Eisai and biotechnology firm Biogen, and this drug basically helps to clear a protein that is accumulated in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease called the amyloid-β protein. The clinical trial included almost 2,000 people with early-stage Alzheimer's and showed that it can slow the mental decline in people with Alzheimer's disease by 27% compared to the placebo group. So, the US regulators will announce in early January whether this drug can become available.

Noah Baker

Absolutely, we should mention here that there are also some scientists that are questioning the benefits here, suggesting there may only be modest benefits and citing some potential concerns about the safety of the drug. Now, these are things which are being discussed by regulators right now and will very much inform the decision that we're waiting to hear.

Miryam Naddaf

It is true. So, there has been a number of cases with bleedings that has been discussed by scientists that are watching.

Noah Baker

And whilst we're on Alzheimer's, there is one other Alzheimer's drug which you've highlighted here called blarcamesine, which is developed by Anavex Life Sciences in New York City. So, tell us a little bit about that. That's currently in clinical trials.

Miryam Naddaf

It is. So, this drug is making its way through clinical trials, and it is basically a drug that activates a protein in the brain that improves the stability of neurons and their what we call neuronal plasticity. This is the neurons’ ability to connect with one another, and this is really important for learning and memory and it may be of clinical benefit to people with Alzheimer's disease.

Noah Baker

Miryam, this has been a real mammoth look through so many exciting things that are happening in science in 2023. I'm sure there will also be plenty of other things that come completely out of left field and surprise us as we go. But we will be here on the Nature Podcast to see them, catch them, discuss them, analyse them, and pick them apart as they do. For now, though, Miryam, I'd like to say thank you so much. It's been great having you on the show. And to you at home, I look forward to an exciting 2023. Thank you so much.

Miryam Naddaf

Thank you, Noah.