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Epigenetic 'clocks' suggest that transplanted organs adjust to the host's biological age. Plus, a new biography of Stephen Hawking and how sham societies are misleading star researchers.
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Heart transplants are limited by donor availability.Credit: Vsevolod Zviryk/SPL
Old hearts ‘de-age’ in younger people
Hearts from young donors age rapidly when transplanted into the bodies of older people, and older hearts are rejuvenated inside young people, a new study suggests. Researchers found that months after a transplant, the level of DNA methylation — the addition or removal of chemical tags called methyl groups that can reliably indicate biological age — in heart tissue changed to more closely match that of the recipient than the donor’s. The findings suggest that replacement organs could be sourced from older people than they are at present.
Nature | 5 min read
Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)
China leads in innovative CAR-T trials
China has become a hotspot for developing and trialling in vivo CAR-T-cell therapies that could transform the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The combination of the country’s large population, fast-track regulatory pathways and ample resources has helped it to dominate therapies that produce disease-fighting immune cells inside the body, say researchers. This month, the US Food and Drug Administration for the first time approved clinical trials for a China-developed in vivo CAR-T-cell therapy, one that treats blood cancers.
Nature | 7 min read
AI in science
AI bots flood researchers with requests
A growing number of researchers report being flooded with messages from AI agents that propose collaborations or offer services for money, from developing research reports and fact-checking to writing journalistic pieces and making portraits. Researchers say that most messages come from agents associated with a US platform called iLands. These bots operate persistently and — to some extent — independently of their human creators.
Nature | 6 min read
Software helps lab tools ‘talk’ to each other
A software framework called the Model Hardware Standard (MHS) connects disparate laboratory instruments that run on different programming languages, enabling them to ‘talk’ to each other. With labware all on the same page, an artificial-intelligence agent can control the equipment and orchestrate experiments without the need for human intervention. Researchers who have trialled MHS report positive experiences, but some caution that the full automation of experiments could come with the trade-offs such as less precision.
Nature | 5 min read
Notable quotable
“I would really love if, across the industry, we could come up with global safety standards … I think that would be a great world.”
Mark Chen is the chief research officer at the tech company OpenAI and leads the development of artificial-intelligence models. He tells Nature that the HuggingFace cybersecurity incident prompted a pivot to safety. (Nature | 7 min read, from Friday)
Read more: OpenAI says it has paused training its most powerful models after announcing that its AI agents breached security controls at dozens of governments, universities, public agencies and other bodies. (Wired | 2 min read, from today)
Features & opinion
Scam societies hoodwink star researchers
A Nature investigation reveals that a sprawling international network of sham scientific societies has bamboozled some of the world’s leading scientists and universities. Organizations such as ‘the European Academy of Engineering’ and ‘the National Academy of Artificial Intelligence’ hand out questionable honours to well-established researchers, or just list high-profile scientists on websites without their knowledge. The ultimate goal seems to be selling memberships and awards to early-career researchers, says Fan Xiudi, who studies academic rigour in China.
Nature | 12 min read
Stephen Hawking’s extraordinary life
In his new book, biographer Graham Farmelo tells the story of how theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking overcame his physical limits to make groundbreaking contributions to science, and then popularize them. Hawking captures the physicist’s deep commitment to his students and colleagues, and gives a balanced account of the ups and downs of his personal life, writes theoretical physicist Neil Turok, who was a close friend of Hawking, in his review. “Farmelo’s candid, calm and objective tone is a welcome antidote to the hysteria that characterized much of the reporting about Hawking during his lifetime,” Turok writes.
Nature | 9 min read
CRISPR and its sisters
The next generation of gene editors
CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing techniques shine when used to make small tweaks to DNA to silence a gene. But the revolutionary technology has its drawbacks, which have spurred researchers to develop a new toolkit for rewriting genomes. Some use remixed versions of CRISPR–Cas9; others take entirely different approaches. These techniques are at early stages, but they could soon allow researchers to replace entire genes and engineer complex cellular circuits — if the systems can be delivered safely into cells. “It’s been an insane explosion of new technologies,” says bioengineer Shannon Miller.
Nature | 11 min read
‘CRISPR-like’ DNA found in viruses
Researchers at tech company Anthropic’s new molecular-biology lab say that they have found DNA patterns in the genomes of several giant viruses that are similar to the bacterial DNA that codes for CRISPR enzymes. “We don’t yet understand what this system does, but only a handful of known systems share its features, and all of them are able to cut, copy, and paste DNA,” the researchers wrote in a preprint.
Soon after, computational biologist Mario Rodríguez Mestre raised the concern that the company might have had access to work that he and his collaborators had been chatting about with Anthropic’s AI tools for the past three years. Anthropic said that its Claude system was “not trained on any user transcripts, and our molecular biology team has no such access, either”.
Nature | 7 min read & The New York Times | 8 min read
Reference: alphaXiv preprint
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-03089-w
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