BRD4 Inhibition Mitigates Acute and Chronic Corneal Injury Following Topical Nitrogen Mustard Exposure

By: Zhongqiao Lu · Shuizhen Shi · Fan Xia · Adwaid Manu Krishna Chandran · Jonathan Lin · Daniela J. Iniguez · Massoud Motamedi · Hua Liu · Wenbo Zhang

2 September 2026 at 08:00

Lu and colleagues identify BRD4 as a central epigenetic driver of vesicant-induced corneal injury. Using reproducible mouse and rabbit models, they show that short-term topical BRD4 inhibition suppresses acute inflammation and provides durable protection of corneal clarity, stromal organization, endothelial integrity, and neovascularization, supporting translational therapy for chemical eye injuries.

A helicase-fused Cas9 improves large-size fragment knockin

Molecular Therapy

By: Duowei Zhao · Xiangjie Zhao · Yuhang Gao · Sujie Yang · Xiaochen Guo · Caiyan Zhang · Chuanpei Li · Chengda Zhang · Huan Tian · Qianqian Xu · Zhi Yin · Zhonghua Liu · Jun Song

29 July 2026 at 08:00

By fusing MCM5, a subunit of the eukaryotic MCM2–7 helicase complex, to the N terminus of spCas9 (MCCas), the MCCas fusion protein enhances large-size fragment knockin via homologous recombination, reduces insertions and deletions (indels), and enables efficient large-size fragment insertions in human cells and rabbit embryos.

EBV strain interacts with host HLA to drive nasopharyngeal carcinoma risk

Nature - Issue - nature.com science feeds

By: Yanhong Chen · Jingtong Liang · Wanlin Zhang · Xinyu Zhang · Xinyi Zhang · Ching-Yuan Wang · Fei Yao · Shanshan Zhang · Xiang Zhou · Weimin Ye · Ruimei Feng · Yonglin Cai · Zhe Zhang · Mingfang Ji · Qian Cui · Xihong Lin · Jiesen Li · Jialei Xu · Qiuting Zhang · Qinyao Huang · Yingying Cheng · Yanran Luo · Xiaoping Ye · Qisheng Feng · Minzhong Tang · Mu-Sheng Zeng · Yi-Xin Zeng · Zhonghua Liu · Weiwei Zhai · Jianjun Liu · Miao Xu

15 April 2026 at 08:00

Nature, Published online: 15 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10416-8

A genome-to-genome association study identifies host and viral risk factors that interact to drive nasopharyngeal carcinoma endemicity in southern China.

Effect of the Maxing Huoqiao granule on nonsevere community-acquired pneumonia: A multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial

(Multiomics OR Omics) AND (Lung OR gastric OR Hepatocellular)

By: Qingming Ke · Caiping Zhao · Shengda Luo · Yuntao Liu · Ye Ye · Xingdong Lin · Jing Zeng · Xinghua Liu · Yang Liao · Hongtao Li · Shu Chen · Hong Ren · Liang Liu · Hudan Pan

12 April 2026 at 18:00

Pharmacol Res. 2026 Apr 9:108186. doi: 10.1016/j.phrs.2026.108186. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) remains a major global public health challenge with substantial morbidity and mortality. Although preclinical studies suggest that Maxing Huoqiao (MXHQ) granule may have therapeutic potential for pneumonia, high-quality clinical evidence is still limited. We conducted a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial at two tertiary hospitals in China to evaluate the clinical efficacy of MXHQ as adjunctive therapy and to explore its potential mechanisms in adults with nonsevere CAP receiving standard moxifloxacin treatment. A total of 96 patients were enrolled and randomized (1:1:1) to receive standard-dose MXHQ, low-dose MXHQ, or placebo in addition to moxifloxacin for 7 days, with a 14-day follow-up. The primary endpoint was clinical cure, defined as composite recovery of major respiratory symptoms, lung rales, and fever; secondary endpoints included symptom relief, radiographic improvement, and safety. Compared with placebo, standard-dose MXHQ was associated with a higher day-14 clinical cure rate (30.78% vs. 68.97%; RR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.24-0.83; P < 0.01). Furthermore, the standard-dose intervention was correlated with a shorter time to relief and recovery of cough and sputum (P < 0.05), as well as improvements in symptom scores (P < 0.05) and promoting lesion absorption on chest CT (P < 0.05). Low-dose MXHQ showed no significant clinical benefit, whereas safety profiles were comparable across all groups. Transcriptomic analyses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells, complemented by a Streptococcus pneumonia animal model, indicated that the clinical benefits of MXHQ are linked to the modulation of inflammation and innate immunity. These omics and in vivo observations suggest a potential mechanism underlying the protective effects of MXHQ against inflammatory injury and promotion of tissue repair, involving the regulation of anti-inflammatory mediators and tissue repair-related factors. (Chictr.org.cn, ID Number: ChiCTR2400082095).

PMID:41966499 | DOI:10.1016/j.phrs.2026.108186

AuTAgent: A Reinforcement Learning Framework for Tool-Augmented Audio Reasoning

cs.AI, q-bio.NC updates on arXiv.org

By: Siqian Tong · Xuan Li · Yiwei Wang · Baolong Bi · Yujun Cai · Shenghua Liu · Yuchen He · Chengpeng Hao

17 February 2026 at 13:00

arXiv:2602.13685v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large Audio Language Models (LALMs) excel at perception but struggle with complex reasoning requiring precise acoustic measurements. While external tools can extract fine-grained features like exact tempo or pitch, effective integration remains challenging: naively using all tools causes information overload, while prompt-based selection fails to assess context-dependent utility. To address this, we propose AuTAgent (Audio Tool Agent), a reinforcement learning framework that learns when and which tools to invoke. By employing a sparse-feedback training strategy with a novel Differential Reward mechanism, the agent learns to filter out irrelevant tools and invokes external assistance only when it yields a net performance gain over the base model. Experimental results confirm that AuTAgent complements the representation bottleneck of LALMs by providing verifiable acoustic evidence. It improves accuracy by 4.20% / 6.20% and 9.80% / 8.00% for open-source and closed-source backbones on the MMAU Test-mini and the MMAR benchmarks, respectively. In addition, further experiments demonstrate exceptional transferability. We highlight the complementary role of external tools in augmenting audio model reasoning.

Reading view