Scientists have identified a potential new strategy for treating glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer, by reprogramming aggressive cancer cells into harmless ones.

Imagine a future where the grip of cocaine use disorder can be loosened, where cravings fade, and the risk of relapse diminishes. A new study brings this vision closer to reality. The research has identified a critical brain circuit that plays a pivotal role in regulating cocaine-seeking behavior.

Nature, Published online: 27 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00602-5

Insights from artificial intelligence could eventually transform drug development, if the quality and quantity of biological and chemical data can be improved.

Nature, Published online: 26 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08584-0

This Review summarizes advances in mass-spectrometry-based proteomics and explores the potential applications of these technologies in the clinic.

Nature, Published online: 26 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08636-5

Systems-level Worm Perturb-Seq of metabolic genes reveals design principles of transcriptional metabolic rewiring, many of which can be explained by a compensation–repression model.

Nature, Published online: 26 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08623-w

A rare variant burden analytical framework for Mendelian diseases was developed and applied to data from the 100,000 Genomes Project, identifying 69 probable new disease–gene associations.

Nature, Published online: 25 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00465-w

Tips for clear scientific communication, and news of efforts to kill the larvae that cause river blindness, in this week’s pick from Nature’s archive.

Nature, Published online: 25 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00598-y

A junk-food splurge can change your brain activity. Plus, hear from US postdocs and PhD students hit hard by Trump’s crackdown on science.

Nature, Published online: 25 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00566-6

Armed with an influx of cash and public enthusiasm, researchers are looking to improve how ageing is measured.

Greetings from a cold winter day.

As I write this letter, we are in the early stages of President Donald Trump’s second term. The inauguration was exactly one week ago, and already an image from that day has become an indelible symbol of presidential power: a photo of the tech industry’s great data barons seated front and center at the swearing-in ceremony.

Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg all sat shoulder to shoulder, almost as if on display, in front of some of the most important figures of the new administration. They were not the only tech leaders in Washington, DC, that week. Tim Cook, Sam Altman, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew also put in appearances during the president’s first days back in action. 

These are tycoons who lead trillion-dollar companies, set the direction of entire industries, and shape the lives of billions of people all over the world. They are among the richest and most powerful people who have ever lived. And yet, just like you and me, they need relationships to get things done. In this case, with President Trump. 

Those tech barons showed up because they need relationships more than personal status, more than access to capital, and sometimes even more than ideas. Some of those same people—most notably Zuckerberg—had to make profound breaks with their own pasts in order to forge or preserve a relationship with the incoming president. 

Relationships are the stories of people and systems working together. Sometimes by choice. Sometimes for practicality. Sometimes by force. Too often, for purely transactional reasons. 

That’s why we’re exploring relationships in this issue. Relationships connect us to one another, but also to the machines, platforms, technologies, and systems that mediate modern life. They’re behind the partnerships that make breakthroughs possible, the networks that help ideas spread, and the bonds that build trust—or at least access. In this issue, you’ll find stories about the relationships we forge with each other, with our past, with our children (or not-quite-children, as the case may be), and with technology itself. 

Rhiannon Williams explores the relationships people have formed with AI chatbots. Some of these are purely professional, others more complicated. This kind of relationship may be novel now, but it’s something we will all take for granted in just a few years. 

Also in this issue, Antonio Regalado delves into our relationship with the ecological past and the way ancient DNA is being used not only to learn new truths about who we are and where we came from but also, potentially, to address modern challenges of climate and disease.

In an extremely thought-provoking piece, Jessica Hamzelou examines people’s relationships with the millions of IVF embryos in storage. Held in cryopreservation tanks around the world, these embryos wait in limbo, in ever growing numbers, as we attempt to answer complicated ethical and legal questions about their existence and preservation. 

Turning to the workplace, Rebecca Ackermann explores how our relationships with our employers are often mediated through monitoring systems. As she writes, what may be more important than the privacy implications is how the data they collect is “shifting the relationships between workers and managers” as algorithms “determine hiring and firing, promotion and ‘deactivation.’” Good luck with that.

Thank you for reading. As always, I value your feedback. So please, reach out and let me know what you think. I really don’t want this to be a transactional relationship. 

Warmly,

Mat Honan
Editor in Chief
mat.honan@technologyreview.com

Nature, Published online: 24 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00265-2

Lack of screening and limited treatment options mean that low- and middle-income countries face higher death rates despite having fewer cases than wealthier nations.

Oncogene, Published online: 26 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41388-025-03314-2

Molecular mechanisms altering cell identity in cancer

Oncogene, Published online: 26 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41388-025-03308-0

Using prognostic signatures and machine learning to identify core features associated with response to CDK4/6 inhibitor-based therapy in metastatic breast cancer

Oncogene, Published online: 22 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41388-025-03309-z

Single-cell multiomics reveals a gene regulatory circuit driving leukemia cell differentiation

To validate the clinical utility of a previously identified circulating tumor DNA methylation marker (meth-ctDNA) panel for disease detection and survival outcomes, meth-ctDNA markers were compared to PSA leve...

2月27日，金蝶云数智化转型大会在广州举办。会上，金蝶中国助理总裁、广东省公司总经理徐嘉祺表示：预测未来的最好方式是创造它，技术不断创新，科技不断进步，我们不应只是追随，更应做到引领。AI时代，金蝶也将秉承“予力企业，成就不凡”的使命，融合数字技术和管理智慧，予力全球每一个企业和个人，帮助更多企业抓住AI红利，构建新质生产力，一起为中国经济发展贡献力量。

A research study has analyzed the relation between the genetic risk of having schizophrenia and mild subclinical traits in people of the general population. According to the study, the way the genetic risk of having this disorder affects these subclinical traits is different in men and women.

Biophysicists have elucidated why unexpected structures can sometimes arise during protein design.

A new method seeks specific molecules that can target desired tissues through the bloodstream and penetrate tissues by passing through cells. This innovation could help solve issues related to drug treatments for, for example, cancer and brain diseases, particularly as regards to drug efficacy.