Featured
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Article
| Open AccessFinnGen provides genetic insights from a well-phenotyped isolated population
Genome-wide association studies of individuals from an isolated population (data from the Finnish biobank study FinnGen) and consequent meta-analyses facilitate the identification of previously unknown coding variant associations for both rare and common diseases.
- Mitja I. Kurki
- , Juha Karjalainen
- & Aarno Palotie
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News & Views |
Time of day shapes the success of a cancer treatment
Daily rhythms affect many aspects of mammalian biology. A discovery in mice that the activity of a key type of immune cell is shaped by such rhythms might have implications for clinical efforts to tackle cancer.
- Christian H. Gabriel
- & Achim Kramer
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News & Views |
The β-selection step shapes T-cell identity
T cells of the immune system develop through a lineage-commitment step followed by two checkpoints. The finding that the first checkpoint is needed to complete commitment offers a fresh perspective on T-cell development.
- Ellen V. Rothenberg
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Correspondence |
Honour genetic diversity to realize health equity
- Leonardo Mariño-Ramírez
- , Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable
- & I. King Jordan
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News Feature |
Colonoscopies save lives. Why did a trial suggest they might not?
A major clinical study raised questions about one of the most celebrated cancer-screening procedures available, but a close look at the data tells a different story.
- Emily Sohn
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Research Highlight |
Neuron-generating stem cells hold promise for multiple sclerosis
A trial aimed at evaluating safety offers hints that stem cells preserve grey matter in people with the neurodegenerative disease.
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News & Views |
Silence, escape and survival drive the persistence of HIV
Sophisticated experimental approaches reveal cellular and immune-system mechanisms that enable rare HIV-infected cells to persist for decades in people who are taking antiretroviral drugs.
- Nicolas Chomont
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Correspondence |
Treating behavioural addictions that lack diagnostic criteria
- Steve Sussman
- & Deborah Louise Sinclair
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News |
COVID drug Paxlovid was hailed as a game-changer. What happened?
Insufficient investment and fears about rebound and side effects are driving down use of a lifesaving antiviral.
- Max Kozlov
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Outlook |
The push to improve children’s health
From cancer to infectious disease to mental health, the well-being of youth is taking centre stage.
- Brian Owens
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Outlook |
Children’s health: highlights from research
ADHD linked to early births, risks of cannabis use while breastfeeding and other studies.
- Nicola Jones
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Outlook |
Why children have to wait years for new drugs
A shortage of participants means that paediatric trials take longer and there is less financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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Outlook |
Vaccination rates are falling, and it’s not just the COVID-19 vaccine that people are refusing
Society’s best defence against childhood diseases is waning. What needs to be done to help it recover?
- Michael Eisenstein
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Outlook |
Could CAR-T-cell therapy offer hope to children with cancer?
The immunotherapy is beginning to show promise in solid tumours, but researchers want more dedicated research in young people.
- Elie Dolgin
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Outlook |
Caring for people and their babies in the opioid crisis
Treating mothers for opioid addiction throughout pregnancy reduces complications during delivery and beyond.
- Tammy Worth
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News & Views |
A refined use of mutations to guide immunotherapy decisions
Assessment of a tumour’s mutational profile offers a way of predicting a person’s response to anticancer therapies called immune-checkpoint inhibitors. It seems that such approaches might fall short for people who are not of European ancestry.
- Chao Cheng
- & Christopher I. Amos
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News |
Cancer treatments boosted by immune-cell hacking
Precision-controlled CAR-T-cell immunotherapies could be used to tackle a range of tumour types.
- Heidi Ledford
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Nature Index |
Biomedical breakthroughs come of age
Approaches to therapy that have long been stuck in the lab are finally finding their way into the clinic.
- Benjamin Plackett
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Nature Index |
Three ways to combat antimicrobial resistance
With a dearth of new antibiotics coming to market, researchers are finding creative ways to keep bacteria at bay.
- Benjamin Plackett
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Nature Index |
Challenging the high-dose paradigm for cancer drugs
The US Food and Drug Administration is looking at ways to lower approved doses to improve quality of life during chemotherapy.
- Marcus A. Banks
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Nature Index |
The ebb and flow of the biomedical sciences in the pandemic era
The field’s overall footprint in the Nature Index continues to grow, but trends vary at regional and institutional levels.
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Nature Index |
Organoids open fresh paths to biomedical advances
Miniaturized versions of human tissue offer greater complexity than the Petri dish and could be an alternative to animal testing.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Nature Index |
Tackle antimicrobial resistance with a pandemic-style mobilization
Solving the public health crisis will take time, money and cooperation.
- David Hyun
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News & Views |
Genetics and anatomy sculpt immune-cell partners of ovarian cancer
The therapeutic options available to treat ovarian cancer need improvement. Data that reveal the cellular, molecular and mutational landscape as such tumours grow and spread might aid efforts to develop new targeted therapies.
- Denarda Dangaj Laniti
- & George Coukos
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News |
How sports science is neglecting female athletes
Imbalance impedes progress in prevention and treatment of injuries among female players.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Analysis
| Open AccessThe WHO estimates of excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic
Msemburi et al. describe how the World Health Organization has estimated the excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, by month and for 2020 and 2021, and analyse their estimates across the WHO member states, with 14.83 million global excess deaths estimated.
- William Msemburi
- , Ariel Karlinsky
- & Jon Wakefield
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Career Feature |
Confronting racism in Black maternal health care in the United States
Maternal-health researcher and obstetrician Kecia Gaither outlines the research needed to save more Black mothers’ lives.
- Frances Gatta
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News Feature |
How a dangerous stew of air pollution is choking the United States
Fires and droughts in the western states are getting worse — and they’re combining with industrial sources to threaten air quality and people’s health.
- Virginia Gewin
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News |
Severe COVID could cause markers of old age in the brain
Key genes that are active in the brains of older people are also active in the brains of people who developed serious COVID-19.
- Heidi Ledford
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Article
| Open AccessFXR inhibition may protect from SARS-CoV-2 infection by reducing ACE2
FXR regulates the levels of ACE2 in tissues of the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems that are affected by COVID-19, and inhibiting FXR with ursodeoxycholic acid downregulates ACE2 and reduces susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
- Teresa Brevini
- , Mailis Maes
- & Fotios Sampaziotis
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Article |
Common and rare variant associations with clonal haematopoiesis phenotypes
Exome sequence data from 628,388 individuals was used to identify 24 risk loci in 40,208 carriers of clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential and link them to other conditions including COVID-19, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
- Michael D. Kessler
- , Amy Damask
- & Eric Jorgenson
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News & Views |
A viral cocktail calms gut inflammation
Abnormalities in gut bacteria can contribute to hard-to-treat illnesses, such as inflammatory bowel diseases. Efforts to harness bacterium-targeting viruses reveal a promising way to tackle these conditions.
- Alice Bertocchi
- & Fiona Powrie
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Career Feature |
Tackle systemic racism to diversify health care and clinical research
Solving structural-racism problems in health will require everyone, from community members to heads of university departments, to be engaged.
- Virginia Gewin
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Career Feature |
Invest the time to build trust among marginalized research participants
Gaining access to Indigenous communities and offering health care in a decolonizing way can take years of respectful collaboration.
- Virginia Gewin
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News Feature |
Will pigs solve the organ crisis? The future of animal-to-human transplants
This year, surgeons transplanted the first pig organs into human recipients. Researchers are keen to launch more human trials.
- Sara Reardon
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News & Views |
A spatial perspective on bacteria in tumours
Bacteria are frequently present in human cancers. The use of state-of-the-art methods for tumour analysis that capture spatial information and single-cell molecular profiles paves the way to clarifying the roles of these microorganisms.
- Ilana Livyatan
- & Ravid Straussman
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Correspondence |
Remembering India’s pioneer in life-saving cholera treatment
- Biswa Prasun Chatterji
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News |
CRISPR cancer trial success paves the way for personalized treatments
‘Most complicated therapy ever’ tailors bespoke, genome-edited immune cells to attack tumours.
- Heidi Ledford
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News & Views |
Spatial maps of genetically diverse breast cancer cells
The generation of spatial maps that detail molecular and genetic information for the diverse cells and tissue environment of breast tumours offers insight into the factors that drive cancer progression.
- Ghamdan Al-Eryani
- & Alexander Swarbrick
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News & Views |
Neurons that promote recovery from paralysis identified
Improved treatments for spinal-cord injury require both technological development and insights into the biology of recovery. High-resolution molecular maps of the nervous system are beginning to provide the latter.
- Kee Wui Huang
- & Eiman Azim
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News & Views |
Engineered T cells to treat lupus arrive on the scene
In an effort to treat systemic lupus erythematosus, T cells of the immune system were engineered to become cells known as CAR T cells. Their injection into people with the disease resulted in clinical and immunological improvement.
- George C. Tsokos
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Nature Index |
US agency seeks to phase out animal testing
The Food and Drug Administration commits to exploring alternative methods to replace laboratory animals in developing new drugs and products.
- Rachel Nuwer
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News |
Could a nose spray a day keep COVID away?
Scientists are working on fast-acting nasal sprays to block coronavirus infections — but formulating the sprays is a challenge.
- Max Kozlov
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Outlook |
Obstacles and opportunities: how psychedelic medicine can rise to its challenges
A panel of researchers and journalists explore the key issues health care must face as the psychedelic wave gathers momentum.
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Nature Podcast |
Racism in Health: the harms of biased medicine
In this podcast special we explore the myriad ways people have injected biases and racism into modern medicine.
- Nick Petrić Howe
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Clinical Briefing |
Preoperative immune-therapy combination shows promise in skin cancer
Treatment with the drugs relatlimab and nivolumab before the surgical removal of a type of cancer called melanoma resulted in tumours becoming inviable in 57% of individuals, and no severe adverse effects were observed. People with a favourable treatment response had a better survival outcome than did those who did not respond.
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World View |
Cancer research needs better databases
Progress on one of the world’s biggest killers will stall without big registries linking scattered records.
- T. S. Karin Eisinger-Mathason