Daniel E. Sabath will receive a meritorious service award at the organization’s annual meeting in November in Seattle

Social animals use a suite of preemptive behaviors in anticipation of conflict, including staying quiet, monitoring their surroundings, conducting raids, and bonding through play. In a review publishing in the Cell Press journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution on July 16, researchers describe how environmental cues and memories of past events can trigger these behaviors. Over generations, these pre-war preparations could impact socio-cognitive evolution, population dynamics, and community structures. 

Researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit a single gene in red perilla, turning its leaves green and boosting levels of health-promoting compounds. The edited plants accumulated about six times more luteolin and increased rosmarinic acid, demonstrating a strategy for developing high-value perilla for food and pharmaceutical applications.

Volume 40 of SLAS Discovery includes four original research articles covering innovative screening platforms and assay technologies that accelerate drug discovery across neurodegenerative disease, transporter biology and challenging protein-protein interactions.

Researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and Kiel University (CAU) have examined immune system function in an early branching animal – a sea anemone. They discovered that the immune system of these animals is capable of selectively distinguishing between different microorganisms and thus protecting beneficial over harmful bacteria – an ability, which has only been attributed to vertebrates to date. So-called “nematosomes” play an important role in this, as the researchers now describe in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The findings emerged from work in the Collaborative Research Centre CRC 1182.

Tubular membrane protrusions — filopodia, tunneling nanotubes, retraction fibers — are ubiquitous structures on the cell surface, essential for intercellular communication, wound healing, angiogenesis, and cancer progression. Yet these delicate membrane tubes face a fundamental biophysical paradox: they must be flexible enough to perform dynamic functions, yet robust enough to withstand mechanical forces such as fluid shear stress and cell–matrix adhesion. While the cytoskeleton has long been recognized as the primary structural support for membrane tubules, the contribution of transmembrane proteins has remained largely unexplored. 

In this study, the authors reveal that the four-pass transmembrane protein tetraspanin 7 (TSPAN7) senses membrane curvature and spontaneously polymerizes into a highly ordered helical configuration on tubular membranes. This helical assembly acts as a "transmembrane skeleton" — a structural scaffold embedded within the lipid bilayer itself — that resists shear-force-induced tube narrowing and rupture. The concept of a transmembrane skeleton, operating not beneath but within the membrane, represents a previously unrecognized class of membrane skeletal architecture and opens new avenues for understanding how cells maintain the structural integrity of their most delicate membrane protrusions.

Researchers at Kanazawa University report the blood-based gene expression tests may enable early pancreatic cancer screening and improve long-term survival.

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) remains a leading cause of death worldwide. Elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is a major modifiable driver of ASCVD, and PCSK9 has become an important therapeutic target because it regulates hepatic LDL receptor recycling and circulating LDL-C levels. Although PCSK9-targeting monoclonal antibodies and siRNA therapies can substantially lower LDL-C, their cost and need for repeated administration have motivated efforts to develop longer-lasting and more accessible approaches.

Ependymoma is a central nervous system tumor that occurs primarily in children and can arise in the supratentorial region, posterior fossa, or spinal cord. Although molecular classification has substantially improved disease stratification and prognostic assessment, the metabolic phenotypes associated with the major pediatric subtypes have remained poorly defined. Because pediatric ependymoma is rare, assembling a cohort that spans multiple molecularly defined subtypes for systematic metabolic comparison is itself challenging.