The magazine Science has selected its top 10 most relevant advances in the different fields of science. In addition to choosing the HIV drug lenacapavir as the year’s preview, an injectable medication that protects people for 6 months with each injection, the magazine’s editors have highlighted other research
Among the most relevant of 2024, Science cites advances against autoimmune diseases through immunotherapy, the findings of the JWST space telescope, the discovery of new cellular organelles or the revelations about ancient DNA.
This is the list of the main scientific milestones of the year for the magazine Science:
Lenacapavir against HIV
HIV continues to infect more than 1 million people a year, and the development of a potential vaccine remains far from reach. However, scientists have put another option on the table: an injectable medication.
Unlike leading HIV drugs that alter viral enzymes by binding to the “active sites” that allow them to function, lenacapavir interacts with capsid proteins that form a protective cone around the viral RNA.
Back in 1996, researchers showed that powerful drug cocktails could completely suppress HIV and prevent the development of the disease, the great advance of Science that year.
Immune cells in autoimmune diseases
CAR-T therapy debuted as a treatment for blood cancer almost 15 years ago (and was part of the Breakthrough of the Year Science in 2013). It’s a completely different way to approach the disease: Doctors isolate T cells, the sentinels of the immune system, from a patient’s white blood cells.
They then genetically modify those cells, usually to seek out and destroy B cells, another component of the immune system, and return them to the patient. Cancerous B cells are at the root of certain leukemias and lymphomas, and CAR-T therapy can remove them.
This year, a new approach, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T), produced striking improvements in severely ill patients, opening up what can be a new chapter in the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
JWST explores cosmic dawn
Since the observatory James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) from NASA opened its gigantic eye in February 2022, the space telescope has detected more bright galaxies in the early epochs of the universe than theorists believed possible. This year, detailed studies of ancient light from galaxies have begun to explain what might be happening.
The JWST, the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built and the Preview of the Year 2022 Sciencewas designed specifically to study the first billion years of the universe, capturing more faint red light than previous instruments.
RNA-based pesticides
This year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved what could be a solution to insecticides killing innocent species along with pests: an adapted RNA-based pesticide spray. to a gene at its intended target.
Invented by the company GreenLight Biosciences, Calantha interferes with a gene unique to the beetle. When the larvae chew on leaves that have been sprayed, the RNA blocks the expression of a key protein and they die within days. This mechanism, known as RNA interference (RNAi), is a natural process that most cells use to regulate gene expression and defend themselves against viruses.
Discovery of organelles
Some bacteria accomplish the feat, but until this year, no eukaryote (an organism with a complex cell, like plants and animals) was known to “fix” nitrogen from the atmosphere, converting it to ammonia, which plants can use to make proteins and other essential molecules.
That changed with the discovery of “nitroplasts””, unique compartments for fixing nitrogen in the cells of seaweed. In addition to demonstrating how much we still don’t know about the evolution of cellular complexity, this finding and related work point to the possibility of future cultures endowed with nitroplasts that would allow them to fertilize themselves.
New type of magnetism
For 98 years, physicists have known about two types of permanently magnetic materials. Now, They have found a third. In known ferromagnets like iron, unpaired electrons from neighboring atoms spin in the same direction, magnetizing the material so that it, for example, sticks to a refrigerator.
Antiferromagnets like chromium have zero overall magnetism, but possess an atomic-scale magnetic pattern, with neighboring electrons spinning in opposite directions.
The new alterimans, hypothesized 5 years agoshare aspects of both. Neighboring electrons spin oppositely, ensuring zero net magnetism, but at a deeper level, the materials also resemble ferromagnets. This year, several groups demonstrated that double personality.
Multicellularity in ancient eukaryotes
Microscopic algae fossils from China reported earlier this year stunned evolutionary biologists by their extreme age. Dated back 1.6 billion years, the specimens suggest that one of the hallmarks of complex life, multicellularity, emerged much earlier than previously thought.
This new discovery suggests, instead, that simple multicellular eukaryotes emerged 1 billion years before the emergence of more complex body plans, which included cells that lack direct access to the outside environment.
Microscopic algae fossils from China reported earlier this year stunned evolutionary biologists by their extreme age.
South Africa’s central plateau may have been pushed up by waves of mantle rock. Laranik/Alamy stored photo
Mantle waves sculpt the continents
When the forces of plate tectonics tear continents apart, it is an incredibly violent process, unfolding in slow motion. It was also thought to be very local, but work this year changed this view, showing that this localized violence generates shock waves in the mantle that shape the entire face of the continents.
In an article published in August in Naturethe researchers exposed what amounts to a compelling appendix to the theory of plate tectonics.
New era of space rockets
SpaceX, the rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk, has already reduced the price of putting cargo into orbit by about a factor of 10 with its partially reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. A fully reusable Starship is expected to reduce that price by another order of magnitude. At the time, Musk’s vision of putting people on Mars doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
The scientists They will also benefit. “Access to space is too valuable to risk failure, so NASA missions tend to be expensive and laborious, tested to the nth degree. But with routine Starship flights, scientists will be able to take more risks, building instruments with cheap, off-the-shelf parts and launching them often.”
Revelations from ancient DNA
DNA recovered from ancient bones and teeth has provided insights into long-ago population movements, the evolution of infectious diseases, and prehistoric diet. Now, he’s also revealing family secrets.
This year, a host of studies have built the equivalent of ancient genealogies, reconstructing family trees of people who died thousands of years ago.
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