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Target product profiles for treatments to delay or prevent symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease

Nature Medicine, Published online: 03 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04305-w

To accelerate therapeutic development and equip stakeholders with clear benchmarks, the authors outline target product profiles for therapies designed to delay or prevent the onset of clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Single-cell and spatial profiling in cancer biology and clinical oncology

Nature Cancer, Published online: 03 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s43018-026-01142-1

Izar and colleagues review the insights into cancer biology gained via single-cell analyses and spatial profiling and overview the challenges and opportunities associated with the implementation of these approaches to guide clinical discovery.

Ethical Handling of Occupational Health and Safety Data in the Fire Service: Empirical Interview and Focus Group Study of Firefighter and Fire Service Leadership Privacy Preferences

Background: There are ongoing efforts to collect larger and higher-quality amounts of occupational health and safety data to better understand and prevent injuries and fatalities among high-risk workers, such as firefighters. Digital health systems including wearable technologies, mobile apps, or internet-based data collection platforms could collect large amounts of sensitive data, but there is little evidence on worker and employer perspectives on data privacy in the fire service. Objective: Our study examined firefighters’ and fire service leadership’s preferences regarding occupational health and safety data privacy. Methods: We conducted interviews and focus groups with career firefighters in Maryland and Virginia; interviews with union representatives and department-level leaders in each state; and interviews with national-level fire service leaders in advocacy, government, and research organizations (March to November 2023). Interviews and focus groups were audio recorded and transcribed. We analyzed transcripts using thematic analysis. Results: The sample included 31 career firefighters, 2 union leaders, 11 national leaders, and 21 department-level leaders (65 total participants from 35 interviews and 4 focus groups). We identified 4 themes: acceptability of data access, sharing, and reporting practices; data sharing and access preferences; appropriate use of firefighter data; and the need for improved communication. Leaders described firefighters’ concerns about job loss and loss of privacy. Firefighters expressed general preferences that their data be deidentified and not shared widely, and they identified mental health data as important but particularly sensitive information. Firefighters also expressed frustration about sharing data with researchers or their departments without knowing the purpose or outcomes. Both firefighters and leaders emphasized the need for enhanced communication and translation of data for firefighters. Conclusions: Fire service leaders held more concerns about the use and sharing of occupational health and safety data than firefighters, but both groups identified ways to further safeguard firefighter data and improve communication about health and safety data. Future fire service data collection should incorporate privacy protections, such as limiting the collection of identifiable information and restricting data access. Data collection should be accompanied by clear communication about the purpose of the data collection, how firefighter data will be used and accessed, and the interpretation of the results. Future digital health interventions should integrate these data privacy protections to respect firefighter preferences and contribute to acceptability and uptake.

Semaglutide on liver fibrosis and heart outcomes in patients at high risk of liver fibrosis: a prespecified analysis of the SELECT randomized trial

Nature Medicine, Published online: 02 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04281-1

A prespecified analysis from the SELECT trial showed that semaglutide reduces major adverse cardiovascular events by 20% compared with placebo, particularly in patients at high risk of fibrosis, as indicated by the Fibrosis-4 index.

The MicrobeAtlas database: Global trends and insights into Earth’s microbial ecosystems

MicrobeAtlas (www.microbeatlas.org) is an integrated, reference-based resource for truly planet-wide microbiomics, analyzing hundreds of thousands of microbial lineages across diverse environments, conditions, and technologies.

Large-scale proteomics across neurological disorders uncovers biomarker panel and targets in multiple sclerosis

Deep proteome profiling of over 5,000 cerebrospinal fluid samples by mass spectrometry maps protein alterations across major neurological disorders, resolving key sources of variation as well as shared and disease-specific signatures. This framework yields a 22-protein assay that improves the differential diagnosis of multiple sclerosis from other inflammatory conditions, particularly in diagnostically challenging oligoclonal band-negative individuals.

Developmental organization of sensory and sympathetic ganglia

Nature, Published online: 01 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10313-0

Findings suggest that neural crest fate bias predominantly emerges within the neural tube, and that only a minor subset of delaminated progenitors retain multipotency to generate both sensory and sympathetic derivatives.

Evidence of the pair-instability gap from black-hole masses

Nature, Published online: 01 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10359-0

LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA’s fourth Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog shows evidence of a clear pair-instability gap in the distribution of binary black-hole secondary masses but is absent in the larger primary masses.

Expansion of outer cortical CUX2 neurons requires adaptations for DNA repair

Nature, Published online: 01 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10290-4

The transcription factor ATF4 is shown to regulate double-stranded DNA repair within vulnerable CUX2+ upper-layer 2/3 cortical neurons, enabling their survival during development.

AhR inhibition promotes axon regeneration via a stress–growth switch

Nature, Published online: 01 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10295-z

AhR functions as a neuronal brake on axon regeneration, integrating environmental sensing, protein homeostasis and metabolic signalling to control the balance between stress adaptation and axonal repair.

Investigating the reproducibility of the social and behavioural sciences

Nature, Published online: 01 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10203-5

A study of reproducibility in a stratified random sample of 600 papers published from 2009 to 2018 in 62 journals spanning the social and behavioural sciences finds higher reproducibility among more recent papers and papers from journals that require data sharing.

Evolution of pandemic cholera at its global source

Nature, Published online: 01 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10340-x

The seventh cholera pandemic, driven by El Tor Vibrio cholerae, evolved separately in Bangladesh and India, with the Ganges Basin acting as the global source, and its evolution has been shaped by phage defence system changes, influencing severity and transmission.

Investigating the analytical robustness of the social and behavioural sciences

Nature, Published online: 01 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09844-9

When 100 social and behavioural science claims were examined, 34% of reanalyses closely matched the original results, with 74% reaching the same conclusion, revealing limited robustness of single-path analyses and the need to address analytical uncertainty.
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