Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 29 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41587-026-03198-x
An approach to retarget the large serine recombinase Bxb1 enables precise integration of large DNA payloads at desired loci.
Experiment-guided AlphaFold3 resolves measurement-consistent protein ensembles
Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 29 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41587-026-03166-5
A generative model using AlphaFold3 as prior infers protein conformational ensembles consistent with measured experimental data.
Retargeted serine integrases for one-step, precise integration of large DNA sequences in human cells
Nature Biotechnology, Published online: 29 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41587-026-03186-1
Serine integrases are retargeted to streamline genomic integrations of DNA.
Noninvasive decoding of typed sentences from human brain activity
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 29 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02303-2
Here the authors introduce Brain2Qwerty, a deep learning model that decodes typed sentences from non-invasive brain activity with character error rate down to 18%. This opens a pathway for non-invasive communication neuroprostheses.
Opinion: Banning gender-affirming care doesn’t protect children — it makes it harder to help them
I am a plastic surgeon who rebuilds faces after car accidents, helps cancer patients breathe, and restores infants’ ability to eat and smile. Yet what draws the most notice is my work transforming masculine features into feminine ones, and vice versa.
I am an outsider to the LGBTQIA+ community. I grew up in a conservative household in which discussions on sex and gender were taboo. But in residency, I saw patients in clinic every Monday with my attending, a cisgender, white, heterosexual male at least 60 years old, who had been providing surgical gender-affirming care for over 25 years. I saw how vulnerable the patients were, trapped in their bodies. I felt the weight they woke up with every day, trying to blend into the surrounding world of instantaneous judgements. And I saw the life-changing impact that surgery had.
Opinion: STAT+: The U.S.-China biotech crackdown may hurt the scientists America needs the most
I spent nearly two decades covering the biotech and pharma sector, first in Washington, D.C., and then in Beijing. My first story, published in 2007, covered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision to open its inaugural overseas office in China, a fast-emerging market I later covered for 12 years.
In that time, I saw a lot of discussion about what the growth of China’s biotech sector would mean for the U.S. Never have I been more concerned about that discourse than I am now.
In recent years, China has become a biotech innovator, accounting for 34% of roughly 14,088 new drugs in global clinical development, leading the United States’ 27%. China is now contributing to 40% of new drugs entering clinical stage each year, according to data provider Pharmcube. The company also noted that China’s out-licensing deals rose nearly tenfold from 2021 to 2025, to an record $137.7 billion. Amid all of this are concerns about stolen intellectual property and the China government’s state-run companies.
STAT+: Sword Health contracted to provide AI-supported physical therapy for an entire country
Can artificial intelligence-powered care solve medical problems at national scale? A modest-sized European country is about to find out.
Portugal’s National Health Service this month inked a deal with digital health company Sword to make its physical therapy care available to the country’s entire population of 10 million people. After receiving a referral from a doctor, patients will receive unlimited access to Sword’s virtual therapy, which leans heavily on artificial intelligence to help guide and supervise care.
Founded a decade ago in Portugal, Sword Health has become one of the most prominent digital health companies offering chronic condition care in the United States. The new deal comes amid growing debate about how the government should support and pay for AI-based care stateside.
STAT+: Investor Clive Meanwell on designing biotechs for population health, and AI’s role as a catalyst
At first, Pfizer’s offer to buy obesity startup Metsera was $7.3 billion. Then Novo Nordisk entered the fray with an unsolicited bid for $9 billion. Then it was a $10 billion counteroffer. A bidding war like that is an investor’s dream, and it happened to Clive Meanwell. Now, he’s betting on AI to help him do it again.
The onetime oncologist has worked in drug development and biotech investment for close to four decades, and he’s now investing in big ideas with firm Population Health Partners, where he’s chairman and partner.
The firm looks for the biggest problems facing human health, problems that could yield a handsome return on investment when solved. “Then we ask the question, ‘Is there anywhere in the world a technology, or a new business model, or a molecule or two or three, or a class of drugs or diagnostics that could solve this problem?’” he said.
STAT+: Moderna co-founder Kenneth Chien on the future of mRNA — and Moderna
Among all the awards and mementos Moderna co-founder Kenneth Chien has accumulated over a 50-year career in science, one stands out for its sheer luxe: an Hermes belt.
It was a 2013 gift from Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, one of biotech’s more dapper CEOs, after Chien helped secure a large partnership between the then-tiny mRNA startup and the Swedish-British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
The deal accelerated Moderna’s ascent, helping bring billions in funding and of course the life-saving mRNA Covid vaccines. But the actual medicines AstraZeneca planned to build through those deals — up to 40 mRNA-based drugs for cancer and cardiovascular disease — never materialized.
Relationship of Peripheral Inflammatory and Neuroprotective Biomarkers With Response to Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation in Treatment-Resistant Depression
Conditions: Treatment-resistant Depression (TRD); Major Depression
Interventions: Device: Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation (iTBS)
Sponsors: Gulhane Training and Research Hospital
Not yet recruiting
Interventions: Device: Intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation (iTBS)
Sponsors: Gulhane Training and Research Hospital
Not yet recruiting