A genetic switch that activates immune cells as they fight tumours: this is the new strategy developed by an international research team coordinated by Velia Siciliano at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT – Italian Institute of Technology) in Naples and described in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The study marks another step towards engineering precise and more effective synthetic immunotherapies against solid tumours, such as melanoma and breast cancer.

A research team has developed a support-bath bioprinting method that enables fragile, mature human adipocytes to be incorporated into geometrically defined three-dimensional (3D) constructs while retaining their viability, characteristic lipid-filled morphology, and metabolic activity. 

Novel Sillén oxyhalides, exhibit high oxide-ion conductivity at low temperatures, chemical stability, and negligible chemical expansion. One of the materials achieves 0.01 S cm⁻¹ bulk conductivity at 233 °C—within the “Norby gap.” The discovery reveals an unexpected vacancy-mediated mechanism for oxide-ion transport despite excess oxygen, introducing a new materials-design concept for fast oxide-ion conductors and low-temperature solid oxide fuel cells. The present findings may open a new research field, “Oxide Ionics.”

Chiral materials have gained traction in photonic integrated circuits and quantum optics due to their unique capability to differentiate between spin states of light for their generation as well as detection. However, the controlled construction of large-scale chiral nanostructures in inorganic crystals remains a challenge. Now, researchers have demonstrated an innovative strategy to develop optical chirality by manipulating encapsulated nanoparticles using femtosecond laser pulses and forming rotationally arranged nanoparticles within the yttrium aluminum garnet lattice.

This authoritative review synthesizes 5 years of pivotal clinical and translational advances in esophageal cancer (EC), encompassing molecular pathogenesis, genomic and epigenetic landscapes, targeted therapeutic modalities and the tumor immune microenvironment. It underscores breakthroughs of immunotherapy in EC management while acknowledging slower progress in targeted treatments. Promising future directions include TKIs, CDK4/6 inhibitors, PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway modulators, epigenetic regulators, ADCs, and rational combination strategies to overcome drug resistance and improve long-term patient survival outcomes.

Waterlogged paddy fields are widely distributed in rainy and low-lying areas of southern China, accounting for 15%–20% of the local rice planting area. The strongly reducing environment formed by long-term flooding not only reduces rice yields by 30%–50% compared with normal paddy fields, but also makes waterlogged soils a core source of agricultural methane emissions, creating a real contradiction with the green and low-carbon development of agriculture and the advancement of carbon neutrality strategies. Oxygen deficiency and the accumulation of ferrous ions and organic acids in waterlogged soils both poison crop roots and immobilize key nutrients such as phosphorus and potassium, becoming a prominent problem constraining the coordinated development of food security and farmland ecology.