Volume 29 Issue 6, June 2023

Nature Medicine explores the latest translational and clinical research news, with positive results from two trials of Sanofi's small interfering RNA fitusiran.

Nature Medicine explores the latest translational and clinical research news, with a phase 1/2 trial of a dual CAR T cell therapy that targets gp120.

Artificial intelligence tools are beginning to upend the drug discovery pipeline, with several new compounds entering clinical trials.

The application of an artificial intelligence (AI)-based screening tool for retinal disease in India and Thailand highlighted the myths and reality of introducing medical AI, which may form a framework for subsequent tools

New federal rules require researchers to submit plans for how to manage and share their scientific data, but institutional ethics boards may be underprepared to review them.

Individuals with cutaneous melanoma who are treated with neoadjuvant immunotherapy show a substantial improvement; this should be incorporated into standard care.

Research software engineering is central to data-driven biomedical research, but its role is often undervalued and poorly understood.

Real-world data reflect the diversity and lived experiences of individuals and so should be a central pillar of clinical research and care.

Adding an oncolytic virus to classic immune checkpoint inhibition elicits treatment responses and survival benefit for select immunologically ‘cold’ recurrent glioblastomas, although creative treatment strategies are still needed for patients with highly anti-inflammatory tumors.

An antisense oligonucleotide therapy substantially reduced tau expression in a phase 1b trial; whether this translates to clinical improvement remains to be seen, but it could have far-reaching implications for neurodegenerative diseases more broadly.

A new study strengthens the association between urbanicity and mental health with more granularity than before, but a causative mechanism remains elusive.

For women who choose nonhormonal therapy for hot flashes, fezolinetant appears to be one of several modestly efficacious and safe options — but women want more.

In a person living with with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the recruitment of CD4⁺ T cells that recognize a co-pathogen in the central nervous system (CNS) resulted in localized inflammation and sparked HIV replication in the presence of suboptimal CNS anti-retroviral levels, leading to systemic virological failure. This case highlights the importance of considering inflammation and co-infection in HIV remission strategies.

α-Synuclein seeds have been identified in various tissues in patients with synucleinopathies. We have developed real-time quaking-induced conversion combined with immunoprecipitation, a method that enables the detection of α-synuclein seeds from the serum of patients with synucleinopathies. This method can lay the foundation for the biological diagnosis of synucleinopathies.

With data from more than 500,000 adults in China, we assessed the association of alcohol use with a range of diseases reported in hospital records, using standard epidemiological and genetic approaches. We found that alcohol consumption was associated with higher risks of over 60 diseases in Chinese men, expanding the scope of known alcohol-related harms.

Primary sclerosing cholangitis dramatically increases the risk of colon cancer in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Our study associates a newly discovered antigen-driven adaptive immune signature with the development of colorectal cancer in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis and might help explain the high incidence of colon cancer in those patients.

We performed multi-ancestry genome-wide meta-analyses of preeclampsia/eclampsia and gestational hypertension, identifying 12 susceptibility loci associated with one or both conditions. These analyses enabled the derivation of genome-wide polygenic risk scores, which predicted the development of these hypertensive pregnancy complications in independent cohorts, independent of clinical risk factors.

A newly composed single-cell transcriptomic atlas of tumor-infiltrating T cells across 16 cancer types revealed previously undescribed T cell states and heterogeneity. A unique T cell stress response state, T_STR, was linked to immunotherapy resistance. Our high-resolution T cell reference maps, web portal, and annotation tool can assist efforts to develop T cell therapies.

The Human Lung Cell Atlas (HLCA), which includes data from 36 studies, is the most comprehensive representation of cellular gene expression in the human respiratory system to date. The HLCA serves as a reference for future cellular studies of the lung, enabling a better understanding of lung biology in health and disease.

The International Childhood Cancer Outcome Project group, involving survivors and other relevant stakeholders, develop a set of core outcomes to measure the quality of care for 17 types of childhood cancers.

The recently completed NCI-MATCH is one of the largest precision oncology trials undertaken to date; this Perspective discusses key aspects of its design and conduct, and lessons for future precision oncology studies.

In a study of two children with the metabolic condition D-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria type II, the drug enasidenib, developed as a selective mutant IDH2 inhibitor for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia, had beneficial effects on cardiac and neurodevelopmental abnormalities, indicating the potential for the repurposing of this drug for this hereditary condition.

Inflammation can trigger HIV reactivation from viral reservoirs in the central nervous system.

A safety and efficacy trial of a single intratumoral dose of the oncolytic adenovirus DNX-2401 followed by intravenous anti-PD-1 pembrolizumab in patients with recurrent glioblastoma shows an encouraging clinical benefit rate and 12 months overall survival.

In updated results from a phase 1 trial of GD2-specific CAR-NKT cells in patients with neuroblastoma, no dose-limiting toxicities were observed across multiple dose levels; the maximum tolerated dose was not reached; and there was evidence of anti-tumor activity.

Response to anti-PD-1 in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma is associated with clonal expansion of intratumoral CXCL13⁺ CD4⁺ helper T cells and effector-like CD8⁺ T cells, and local dendritic cells enriched in expression of maturation and regulatory molecules help facilitate CD8⁺ T cell differentiation.

In patients with DNA damage response-deficient solid tumors, the oral ATR kinase inhibitor camonsertib was well tolerated; a recommended phase 2 dose was identified; and encouraging anti-tumor activity was observed, with the highest response rate observed in patients with ovarian cancer.

Analyses of large population-based cohorts and clinical trials show that using polygenic scores to account for variability in PSA levels improves detection of prostate cancer, suggesting an approach for enhancing screening accuracy.

Analysis of tumor samples from patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma shows that gemcitabine plus cisplatin chemotherapy activates a unique population of innate-like B cells, which enhance the cytotoxic CD8⁺ T cell response and are associated with better clinical outcomes.

Evaluation of a tau-targeting antisense oligonucleotide in a phase 1 trial of patients with mild AD found it was well tolerated and resulted in a sustained reduction of tau protein levels.

A modified seed aggregation assay detects minute amounts of serum α-synuclein seeds in individuals with synucleinopathy, demonstrating high performance as a diagnostic biomarker.

Analyses of data from the UK Biobank reveal different urban living environments that are associated with affective, anxiety and emotional instability symptom groups and mediated by distinct neurological and genetic pathways in adults.

Results from the LAVENDER phase 3 study demonstrate that trofinetide, a synthetic analog of glycine–proline–glutamate, provides significant therapeutic benefits in the core symptoms of Rett syndrome

Observational analyses from the China Kadoorie Biobank found that alcohol consumption was associated with higher risks of 61 diseases in Chinese men, with most of these associations confirmed by genetic analyses.

The signaling-specific inhibitor AEF0117 selectively inhibits CB₁ activation by THC and reduces self-administration and subjective effects of cannabis in clinical trials, making it a potential treatment for cannabis use disorder.

Findings from the SURPASS-AP-Combo trial demonstrate that addition of tirzepatide is non-inferior and superior to insulin glargine for glycemic outcomes at 40 weeks when used as second-line or third-line therapy in an Asia-Pacific (predominantly Chinese) population with type 2 diabetes.

In an open-label, randomized controlled trial, normothermic machine perfusion of kidneys from donation after circulatory death was found to be feasible and safe but did not reduce the rate of delayed graft function compared to static cold storage.

Multiomics analysis of right colon tissues identifies a distinct immune gene signature associated with greater risk of and shorter time to dysplasia in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis, but not in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Genomic and cell-free DNA sequencing clarify the clinical diagnosis and inform treatment initiation in a cohort of 356 patients with vascular anomalies.

A multi-ancestry genetic meta-analysis identifies 12 new loci associated with preeclampsia and gestational hypertension and proposes the integration of polygenic scores and clinical factors for disease prediction

A single-cell analysis of tumor-infiltrating T cells from 16 cancer types identifies new T cell subsets and a stress response cell state enriched in tumors resistant to immunotherapy.

A single-cell atlas of the human lungs, integrating data from 2.4 million cells from 486 individuals and including samples from healthy and diseased lungs, provides a roadmap for the generation of organ-scale cell atlases.