Impaired wound healing and pathological scarring remain major clinical challenges, closely linked to dysregulation of the immune microenvironment.

Impaired wound healing and pathological scarring remain major clinical challenges, closely linked to dysregulation of the immune microenvironment. Aberrant macrophage polarization, persistent neutrophil activation, and dysfunctional T cell regulation have been demonstrated to critically shape wound resolution and fibrotic outcomes. However, conventional in-vitro models fail to recapitulate human-relevant immune responses, thereby limiting mechanistic insights into wound healing pathology and hindering therapeutic translation.

Human tumor organoids have advanced cancer modeling by preserving patient-specific heterogeneity and functional drug responses. However, translating organoid findings into routine decision-making remains challenging due to variability in culture conditions and incomplete reconstruction of the tumor microenvironment. In this review, we present a clear and actionable framework that positions tumor organoids as dynamic living biosensors, linking mechanistic studies, tumor microenvironment reconstruction, functional drug-response phenotyping, and precision-therapy decision-making.

This study introduces TEAM (Targeted Elimination and Microcell-Mediated Transfer), a novel programmable platform that enables precise chromosome replacement in mammalian cells. By combining CRISPR/Cas9-mediated chromosome elimination with microcell-mediated chromosome transfer (MMCT), researchers successfully demonstrated intra-species chromosome stability while uncovering fundamental barriers to cross-species chromosome engineering.

Eastern Africa’s Turkana Rift is both a hotbed for fossil discoveries of our earliest ancestors and a literal hotbed of volcanic activity caused by shifting tectonic plates. Now researchers have found that Earth’s underlying crust in the region has been significantly thinned, presaging Africa’s eventual breakup—and with that finding, the researchers offer a new perspective on how Turkana’s world-famous fossil record of human evolution came to be.

Community help is no longer just nice to have in the world of bat conservation, it is essential to large-scale bat monitoring and the protection of threatened and understudied species, according to new research.

Researchers at the International Laboratory of Microphysiological Systems of the HSE Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology investigated how different isoforms of the same microRNA influence gene function in prostate adenocarcinoma. The study found that in some cases, microRNAs can reinforce each other’s effects by targeting and suppressing the same genes. This finding offers a fresh perspective on the molecular mechanisms underlying tumour development and on the search for disease biomarkers. The results have been published in PeerJ.

How do cells know when to activate or slow down their activity? A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) provides new insights by studying TORC2, an essential but still poorly understood protein complex. Using ultra-high-resolution imaging, scientists were able to observe its structure in detail for the first time. The team notably reveals the existence of a  molecular “cork” that controls its activation at the cell surface. Published in the journal Molecular Cell, these findings pave the way for new strategies to target this mechanism, which is involved in diseases such as cancer and diabetes.