Many journals take advantage of the year’s end to synthesize the last twelve months of events in the articles they’ve published throughout the year. Here are what Nature has selected to feature as its biggest life science news stories for 2022.

AI predicts protein structures

Researchers announced in July that they had used the revolutionary artificial-intelligence (AI) network AlphaFold to predict the structures of more than 200 million proteins from roughly one million species, covering almost every known protein from all organisms whose genomes are held in databases. The development of AlphaFold netted its creators at the London-based AI company DeepMind, owned by Alphabet, one of this year’s US$3-million Breakthrough prizes — the most lucrative awards in science.

AlphaFold isn’t the only player on the scene. Meta (formerly Facebook), in California, has developed its own AI network, called ESMFold, and used it to predict the shapes of roughly 600 million possible proteins from bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms that have not been isolated or cultured. Scientists are using these tools to dream up proteins that could form the basis of new drugs and vaccines.

Monkeypox goes global

The rapid global spread of monkeypox (recently renamed ‘mpox’ by the WHO) this year caught many scientists off guard. Previously, the virus had mainly been confined to Central and West Africa, but from May this year, infections started appearing in Europe, the United States, Canada and many other countries, mostly in young and middle-aged men who have sex with men. The virus is related to smallpox, and the circulating strain only rarely causes severe disease or death. But its fast spread led the WHO to declare the global outbreak a ‘public-health emergency of international concern’, the agency’s highest alert level, in July.

As cases soared, researchers got to work trying to understand the dynamics of the disease. Studies confirmed that it is transmitted primarily through repeated skin-to-skin contact, and trials of possible treatments got under way. Existing smallpox vaccines were also used to suppress the virus in some countries. Six months after mpox infections first started increasing, vaccination efforts and behavioural changes seemed to have curbed its spread in Europe and the United States. Researchers predict a range of scenarios from here — the most hopeful being that the virus fizzles out in non-endemic countries over the next few months or years.

Omicron’s offspring drive the pandemic

Omicron and its descendants dominated all other coronavirus variants this year. The fast-spreading strain was first detected in southern Africa in November 2021, and quickly spread around the globe. From early on, it was clear that Omicron could evade immune-system defences more successfully than previous variants, which has meant that vaccines are less effective. Throughout the year, a diverse group of immune-dodging offshoots of Omicron has emerged, making it challenging for scientists to predict coming waves of infection.

Vaccines based on Omicron variants have been rolled out in some countries in the hope they will offer greater protection than previous jabs, but early data suggest the extra benefit is modest. Nasal sprays against COVID-19 have also become a tool in the vaccine line-up. The idea is that these stop the virus at the site where it first takes hold. In September, China and India approved needle-free COVID-19 vaccines that are delivered through the nose or mouth, and many similar vaccines are in various stages of development. You can read the full text at Nature’s biggest news stories of 2022. 1

References

  1. Nature’s biggest news stories of 2022. (2022, December 15). Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04384-y?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=f198362770-briefing-dy-20221229&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-f198362770-47677880

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