When a tumor migrates and colonizes another tissue or organ, it can be identified as a metastasis, but its origin is not always clear. Now, a study based on machine learning has identified DNA-methylation patterns that reveal the type of tissue a cancer comes from when the primary tumor cannot be found. This technique could help guide more specific treatments for patients with cancers of unknown primary, who today often receive broad, nontargeted chemotherapy.

A new metasurface design strategy that replaces rigid order with “engineered disorder” could significantly increase how many optical functions can be integrated into a single ultra-thin device without increasing size or complexity, according to a study published in Nature Communications. The study challenges a longstanding assumption in optical engineering that highly ordered, periodic structures are required to precisely control light.

The U.S. FDA’s latest draft guidance on gene therapies focuses on nonclinical studies using next-generation sequencing-based methods and bioinformatics to evaluate safety risks associated with off-target editing and loss of genome integrity in human gene-edited products.

Amazon is extending the reach of its “everything store” into drug R&D with the launch of an artificial intelligence-powered Bio Discovery business. The company has compiled a catalogue of 40-plus foundation models that have been trained on extensive biology datasets and are able to generate and evaluate drug molecules in silico. For now, this covers antibodies only, but it is intended to move into other modalities.

Vivatides Therapeutics Inc. has closed an oversubscribed $54 million series A financing to advance its work in extrahepatic RNA delivery technologies. Proceeds from the financing will be used to further advance the company’s extrahepatic delivery platform and accelerate pipeline programs.

More than four decades on from the approval of the first biologic drug, the industry has reached a tipping point, and biotech drugs now outnumber small molecules in the global R&D pipeline. At the start of the biotech industry, progress was slow. Between 1983 and 1995, the U.S. FDA approved an average of two biologics each year. Now, biologics have taken the lead by the smallest of margins, accounting for 50.1% of drugs in development at the start of 2026, according to the Pharma Annual Review 2026, published by Pharmaprojects, a firm that tracks global pharma R&D.

A smart polymer contact lens measures intraocular pressure (IOP) in real time and automatically releases medication into the eye when IOP goes beyond a critical limit. This technological advance, developed by scientists at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI), could enable personalized glaucoma therapy, avoiding poor patient adherence to their prescribed regimen and eliminating the need for bulky electronic devices. Animal models tolerate it well and, although the load is concentrated at the edges of the lens, it is still unknown how it could affect visual acuity.

A smart polymer contact lens measures intraocular pressure (IOP) in real time and automatically releases medication into the eye when IOP goes beyond a critical limit. This technological advance, developed by scientists at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, could enable personalized glaucoma therapy.

Alloy Therapeutics Inc. has entered into a collaboration and license agreement with Biogen Inc. for the use of Alloy’s Anticlastic ASO platform to accelerate the development of innovative oligonucleotide therapeutics.

In previous work, researchers from the University of Georgia developed liposomes loaded with antifungal drugs and coated with the carbohydrate recognition domains of mouse dectin-1 and/or dectin-2, called Dectisomes. The murine Dectisomes efficiently bound and killed pathogenic fungi in vitro and in mouse disease models. In a new study, the team aimed to explore how to potentially move Dectisomes into the clinic with human dectin orthologues.