Health care

Correcting public misperceptions about the views of doctors on the COVID-19 vaccines can have lasting impacts on public uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.

A study reports the design and performance of a reinforcement learning algorithm that enabled efficient and targeted SARS-CoV-2 testing of passengers travelling to Greece in the summer of 2020.

Severe caloric restriction in humans leads to reversible changes in the gut microbiota that promote weight loss and the expansion of an enteric pathogen in mice.

In a phase-I/II trial in healthy adults, the BNT162b2 vaccine induces neutralizing antibodies and poly-specific T cells against SARS-CoV-2 epitopes that are conserved in a wide range of currently circulating variants.

A deep-learning-based algorithm uses routinely acquired histology slides to provide a differential diagnosis for the origin of the primary tumour for complicated cases of metastatic tumours and cancers of unknown primary origin.

Absolute microbial abundances delineate longitudinal dynamics of bacteria, fungi and archaea in the infant gut microbiome, uncovering drivers of microbiome development masked by relative abundances and revealing notable parallels to macroscopic ecosystem assemblies.

Although progress in the coverage of routine measles vaccination in children in low- and middle-income countries was made during 2000–2019, many countries remain far from the goal of 80% coverage in all districts by 2019.

An epidemiological model that integrates fine-grained mobility networks illuminates mobility-related mechanisms that contribute to higher infection rates among disadvantaged socioeconomic and racial groups, and finds that restricting maximum occupancy at locations is especially effective for curbing infections.

A mathematical algorithm for population-wide screening of SARS-CoV-2 infections using pooled parallel RT–PCR tests requires considerably fewer tests than individual testing procedures and has minimal delays in the identification of individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and low-cost, contactless sensors have given rise to an ambient intelligence that can potentially improve the physical execution of healthcare delivery, if used in a thoughtful manner.

A recombinant vaccine that targets the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 induces a potent antibody response in immunized mice, rabbits and non-human primates, and protects primates from infection with the virus.

Analysis of the full-spectrum transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in Wuhan reveals that multipronged non-pharmaceutical interventions were effective in controlling the outbreak, and highlights that covert infections may pose risks of resurgence when reopening without intervention measures.

OpenSAFELY, a new health analytics platform that includes data from over 17 million adult NHS patients in England, is used to examine factors associated with COVID-19-related death.

Modelling based on pooled data from 11 European countries indicates that non-pharmaceutical interventions—particularly lockdowns—have had a marked effect on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, driving the reproduction number of the infection below 1.

Two monoclonal antibodies isolated from a patient with COVID-19 are shown to interfere with SARS-CoV-2–receptor binding, and one displays potent action against this virus in vitro and in a rhesus macaque model.

Insights into the interactions between pro- and anti-vaccination clusters on Facebook can enable policies and approaches that attempt to interrupt the shift to anti-vaccination views and persuade undecided individuals to adopt a pro-vaccination stance.

A model of the effects of different non-pharmaceutical interventions on the spread of COVID-19 in China suggests that a strategy involving the rapid implementation of a combination of interventions is most effective.

Modelling of population flows in China enables the forecasting of the distribution of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and the identification of areas at high risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission at an early stage.

A high-resolution, global atlas of mortality of children under five years of age between 2000 and 2017 highlights subnational geographical inequalities in the distribution, rates and absolute counts of child deaths by age.

Nutrient content analyses of marine finfish and current fisheries landings show that fish have the potential to substantially contribute to global food and nutrition security by alleviating micronutrient deficiencies in regions where they are prevalent.

Delivery via caesarean section, maternal antibiotic prophylaxis and colonization by opportunistic pathogens associated with the hospital environment affect the composition of the gut microbiota of children from birth until infancy.

A deep learning approach that predicts the risk of acute kidney injury may help to identify patients at risk of health deterioration within a time window that enables early treatment.

High-throughput genetic analyses combined with mass spectrometry reveal that the gene products of diverse human gut bacteria affect a wide range of oral drugs, as well as drug metabolism in mice.

Fine-scale estimates of the prevalence of HIV in adults across sub-Saharan Africa reveal substantial within-country variation and local differences in both the direction and rate of change in the prevalence of HIV between 2000 and 2017.

Combining mobile phone technologies with infectious disease diagnostics can increase patients’ access to testing and treatment and provide public health authorities with new ways to monitor and control outbreaks of infectious diseases.

An analysis of more than 10,000 metagenomes from the TEDDY study provides a detailed functional profile of the gut microbiome in relation to islet autoimmunity, and supports the protective effects of short-chain fatty acids in early-onset type 1 diabetes.

Longer human lives have led to a global burden of late-life disease, and so interventions, including changes to lifestyle and medical innovations, are needed to prevent disease and increase late-life health.

A PI3KCA inhibitor reverses symptoms in a mouse model of PROS/CLOVES syndrome, which results from gain-of-function mutations in PI3KCA, and produces improvements in patients with PROS/CLOVES syndrome.

Triangulation of microbe–phenotype relationships is an effective method for reducing the noise inherent in microbiota studies and enabling identification of causal microbes of disease, which may be applicable to human microbiome studies.

Multiple transcriptome approaches, including single-cell sequencing, demonstrate that escape from X chromosome inactivation is widespread and occasionally variable between cells, chromosomes, and tissues, resulting in sex-biased expression of at least 60 genes and potentially contributing to sex-specific differences in health and disease.

A huge smartphone dataset of physical activity yields global insights, revealing that activity inequality predicts obesity better than does volume of activity and that much of the inequality is a result of reduced activity in females.

An artificial intelligence trained to classify images of skin lesions as benign lesions or malignant skin cancers achieves the accuracy of board-certified dermatologists.

Demographic analysis of life expectancy and maximum reported age at death provides evidence that human lifespan has reached its natural limit.

By merging plastic-based skin sensors with silicon integrated circuits, a flexible, wearable perspiration analysis system is presented that measures skin temperature and the metabolites and electrolytes in human sweat and analyses the information in situ.