Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute

A group of volunteers in the UK let scientists put the SARS-CoV-2 virus up their noses for research investigating why some of us naturally avoid getting COVID-19. This first-of-its-kind study opens the door to better vaccines and treatments.

By using advanced screening methods to tune into the communications taking place between individual cells, scientists have produced a full connectivity map of the human immune system, which may help develop new treatments for disease.

The Pan-Cancer Project is an international collaboration dedicated to analyzing thousands of whole cancer genomes. The results have been published, revealing new details about cancer’s causes, development, classification, diagnosis and treatment.

As part of the Human Cell Atlas initiative researchers have mapped the different types of cells in the lungs, and spotted some crucial new differences between healthy and asthma-affected airways that could inspire some new drug targets.

A new research paper has again raised doubts over the safety and accuracy of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique. The study suggests that the gene editing process can cause extensive unforeseen and unpredictable alterations to DNA sequences outside of the intended targets.

Researchers say that for the first time, they've spotted radiation's exact effect on the DNA in cancerous cells, which could help them distinguish which cancers are caused by radiation and perhaps develop cures specific to that form of the disease.