News Feature in 2021

Investment in small-molecule protein degraders is surging, but their drawbacks, limitations and risks are becoming clear.

In China, the first children with germline-edited genomes are growing up. How might their edited genomes affect their lives?

Whether pan-vaccines or antibodies, SARS-CoV-2 is adding impetus to the race for broad-spectrum countermeasures against the world’s next infectious scourges.

Nature Biotechnology’s annual survey highlights university startups that are, among other things, rethinking how to deliver gene-editing therapy and tackling various metabolic conditions, immune disorders and cancer with microbiome treatments or immunotherapy. Michael Eisenstein, Ken Garber, Esther Landhuis, Caroline Seydel and Laura DeFrancesco report.

Human TCR-based adoptive T cell cancer therapy is entering clinical testing. Can it succeed in cancers where CAR-T cell therapy has failed?

Chemical synthesis matures as an alternative to cell culture for made-to-order small to medium-sized proteins.

Moving beyond viral vectors and lipid nanoparticles, Spotlight is conjugating Cas proteins to agents that will home endonucleases and their guide RNAs to targets in vivo.

With the risks of drug development prohibitive, repurposed or repositioned medicines appear the best hope against long-COVID, a condition that still raises many unanswered questions.

China’s growing influence in biotech was underscored in 2020 during a record-breaking year for sector financing.

Ex vivo gene editing of hematopoietic stem cells using CRISPR–Cas9 and adeno-associated virus serotype 6 is ready for trials in people with sickle-cell disease.

Engineered single-strain biotherapeutic products and massive synthetic consortia are being developed in parallel to manipulate the immune and metabolic systems in disease.

Plasma cells can be turned into protein factories for patients with protein deficiencies for whom one-and-done gene therapy is not an option.

Will regulatory T cells provide needed therapies against inflammatory and autoimmune disorders?

Nature Biotechnology asks a selection of leaders from across biotech to look at the future of the sector and make some predictions for the coming years.

Cytokines are problematic drugs, but Stanford structural immunologist Chris Garcia has engineered creative solutions that his company will begin testing this year in cancer

Using single-cell techniques to isolate and characterize IgE-producing B cells that can produce anti-allergy antibodies.

Large-scale genomic studies are reinvigorating interest in a small group of molecularly defined autism-associated disorders and spurring renewed interest in genetic therapies.

For most of its history, biomedical research and clinical testing has neglected over half of the world’s population. Finally, researchers and funders are starting to recognize the importance of sex differences.

In the absence of face-to-face meetings, FDA and industry implemented regulatory workarounds to maintain drug and biologics approvals. These could be here to stay.