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Genome-wide ancient DNA data from individuals from the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age documents large-scale movement of people from the European continent between 1300 and 800 bc that was probably responsible for spreading early Celtic languages to Britain.

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) is an anti-inflammatory drug proposed as a treatment for COVID19. Here the results are reported from a randomised trial testing DMF treatment in 713 patients hospitalised with COVID-19. DMF was not associated with any improvement in day 5 outcomes.

Patients with neurodevelopmental conditions without a monogenic diagnosis have a higher polygenic burden than those with a monogenic diagnosis. Non-transmitted common alleles in the parents are associated with the child’s phenotype, and the common and rare variants conferring risk are correlated.

A study generates a clinicogenomics dataset resource, MSK-CHORD, that combines natural language processing-derived clinical annotations with patient medical data from various sources to improve models of cancer outcome.

Analysis of autosomal recessive coding variants in 29,745 trios from the DDD study and GeneDx provides insights into the genetic architecture of developmental disorders across ancestrally diverse populations.

In this study, Aggarwal and colleagues perform prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 isolates derived from asymptomatic student screening and symptomatic testing of students and staff at the University of Cambridge. They identify important factors that contributed to within university transmission and onward spread into the wider community.

Content-aware frame interpolation (CAFI) improves the temporal resolution in time-lapse imaging by accurately predicting images in between image pairs. By allowing fewer frames to be imaged, CAFI also enables gentler live-cell imaging.

Richard Houlston and colleagues report a new risk locus for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The associated variant is located in the CDKN2A gene at chromosome 9p21.

While GWAS have uncovered susceptibility loci for B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL), much of the heritable risk remains undiscovered. Here, the authors perform a meta-analysis of two existing BCP-ALL GWAS together with an unpublished GWAS to identify risk loci at 8q24.21 and 2q22.3.

The high stability of aromatic compounds often limits the types of reaction that can be conducted on them. Now, a series of photochemically promoted addition reactions has been used to effect the oxidative dearomatization of benzene derivatives. These reactions provide a suite of versatile new building blocks for chemical synthesis.

Mosquitoes are nearly eradicated in three suburbs of California using accurately sorted sterile male mosquitoes.

A study of the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in England between September 2020 and June 2021 finds that interventions capable of containing previous variants were insufficient to stop the more transmissible Alpha and Delta variants.

Little is known about the recent population history or the effects of endogamy on the Pakistani population. Here the authors examine the impact of the biraderi social stratification system on the population structure of individuals of British Pakistani ancestry in the Born in Bradford cohort.

Schizophrenia risk has been associated with the complement component 4 (C4) genes. Here the authors show that C4A is elevated in individuals with schizophrenia.

Tissue fibrosis is a major contributor to mortality in the developed world. Here, the authors identify a genetic variant in the intronic region of interferon-λ4 that is a strong predictor of hepatic inflammation and fibrosis, independent of liver disease aetiology

Chronic Hepatitis C infection is associated with a broad spectrum of liver pathologies, ranging from inflammation to fibrosis and liver cancer. Here Thabet et al. identified a polymorphism in the gene MBOAT7 that is associated with increased hepatic inflammation and higher risk of fibrosis development and progression.

Understanding the neural processes governing the human gut-brain connection has been challenging. Here, the authors investigate the perceptual response and neural correlates of gastrointestinal sensation using a minimally invasive mechanosensory probe.

The Omicron variant evades vaccine-induced neutralization but also fails to form syncytia, shows reduced replication in human lung cells and preferentially uses a TMPRSS2-independent cell entry pathway, which may contribute to enhanced replication in cells of the upper airway. Altered fusion and cell entry characteristics are linked to distinct regions of the Omicron spike protein.

Chromodomain Helicase DNA-binding (CHD) proteins have been implicated in neurodevelopmental processes. Here, the authors identify missense variants in CHD3 that disturb its chromatin remodeling activities and cause a neurodevelopmental disorder with macrocephaly and speech and language impairment.

Developmental disorders (DDs) are more prevalent in males, thought to be due to X-linked genetic variation. Here, the authors investigate the burden of X-linked coding variants in 11,044 DD patients, showing that this contributes to ~6% of both male and female cases and therefore does not solely explain male bias in DDs.

By integrating healthcare and exome-sequencing data from parent–offspring trios of patients with developmental disorders, 28 genes that had not previously been associated with developmental disorders were identified.

Two-photon excited near-infrared fluorescence materials have garnered considerable attention because of their superior optical properties compared with other optical materials. Here, the authors use a convenient and efficient supramolecular approach to synthesize a two-photon excited near-infrared emissive co-crystalline material.

The geometry of periodic plasmonic nanostructures in three dimensions can be exploited to give tailored optical properties. Here, the authors study the role of anisotropy on the nano- and mesoscale to provide a framework for designing the optical response of metamaterials formed from plasmonic building blocks.

Whole-exome analysis of individuals with developmental disorders shows that de novo mutations can equally cause loss or altered protein function, but that most mutations causing altered protein function have not yet been described.

A single-cell approach is used to follow the heritable stochastic changes to DNA methylation that occur in primary chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and healthy B cells, allowing the tracing of cell lineage histories and evolution during treatment with ibrutinib.