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Wednesday, July 08, 2026

Do cancer screening rates differ across sexual orientation and gender identity?

Study reveals disparities and the need for equitable screening access

Wiley

New research has uncovered persistent disparities in preventive cancer care across different sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) populations. The study published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, found particular concern for cervical and breast cancer screening.

To assess SOGI differences in cancer screening and prevalence, investigators analyzed data from the 2018–2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a nationally representative annual telephone survey of US adults.

Among 663,924 respondents who were eligible for different cancer screening tests, sexual orientation minority (such as gay and bisexual) women were 8% and 16% less likely to receive screening tests for cervical cancer and breast cancer, respectively, compared with heterosexual women. In men, sexual orientation minorities had a 10% higher colorectal cancer screening rate that heterosexual men. Compared with cisgender status, gender identity minority (such as transgender) status was associated with a 42% and 76% lower likelihood of cervical cancer and breast cancer screening, respectively, with no differences for colorectal cancer screening. SOGI was not associated with meaningful differences in cancer prevalence.

“The current data highlight how sexual and gender minority populations, particularly transgender individuals, face significant disparities in accessing breast and cervical cancer screenings,” said senior author Timothy M. Pawlik, MD, MPH, PhD, of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “The study emphasizes the urgent need for targeted interventions, including improved training for providers and policy reform, to bridge these gaps and ensure equitable, inclusive care.”

Additional information
NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. A free abstract of this article will be available via the CANCER Newsroom upon online publication. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com

Full Citation:
“Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Based Disparities in Colorectal, Cervical, and Breast Cancer Screening in the United States.” Lorenza Arena, Qaidar Alizai, Abdulaziz Elemosho, Odysseas P. Chatzipanagiotou, and Timothy M. Pawlik. CANCER; Published Online: July 6, 2026 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.70462).
URL Upon Publication: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/cncr.70462

Author Contact: Eileen Scahill, senior writer in The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Department of Marketing and Strategic Communications, at Eileen.Scahill@osumc.edu

About the Journal
CANCER is a peer-reviewed publication of the American Cancer Society integrating scientific information from worldwide sources for all oncologic specialties. The objective of CANCER is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of information among oncologic disciplines concerned with the etiology, course, and treatment of human cancer. CANCER is published on behalf of the American Cancer Society by Wiley and can be accessed online. Follow CANCER on X @JournalCancer, and stay up to date with the American Cancer Society Journals on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

About Wiley
Wiley is a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning. With more than 200 years at the center of the scholarly ecosystem, Wiley combines trusted publishing heritage with AI-powered platforms to transform how knowledge is discovered, accessed, and applied. From individual researchers and students to Fortune 500 R&D teams, Wiley enables the transformation of scientific breakthroughs into real-world impact. From knowledge to impact—Wiley is redefining what's possible in science and learning. Visit us at Wiley.com and Investors.Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Journal

Cancer

DOI

10.1002/cncr.70462

Article Title

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Based Disparities in Colorectal, Cervical, and Breast Cancer Screening in the United States

Article Publication Date

6-Jul-2026

One in five relatives of breast and ovarian cancer patients in Estonia carry dangerous cancer-linked genes, study shows

Increased screening of patients’ family members, including men, could help identify people at high risk and support targeted cancer prevention

Frontiers

In 2013, Angelina Jolie inspired a wave of testing for pathogenic variants of the gene BRCA1 by announcing that she carried a variant which left her at such high risk of breast cancer, she chose a preventive mastectomy. Many people with similar gene variants won’t need risk-reducing surgery, but knowing if you carry a dangerous variant could be lifesaving. Researchers reviewing the genetic testing results of healthy family members of breast and ovarian cancer patients in Estonia found that 19.7% of them carried variants which elevate their cancer risk. This included 34% of men tested.

“Hereditary cancer risk is both more common and more actionable than often assumed,” said Dr Mikk Tooming of the Institute of Clinical Medicine in Tartu, Estonia, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Genetics. “People with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer — especially those with multiple affected relatives or early-onset cases — should strongly consider genetic counselling and, where appropriate, genetic testing. Our data show that a substantial proportion of pathogenic variant carriers are identified before the typical screening age, suggesting that relying solely on standard population screening may delay detection of elevated risk.

“Our study also highlights that men should not be overlooked. Male carriers of pathogenic variants, particularly in BRCA2, face increased risks for prostate and other cancers, and may benefit from earlier and more targeted screening.”

Knowledge is power

To understand how common these genes are in affected families, the scientists collected data on 3,472 people who had undergone testing in Estonia between 2007 and 2023. Most of these people had been referred because their family members had breast or ovarian cancer, and doctors suspected a possible hereditary link.

“Early identification of carriers allows individuals to access tailored risk management strategies,” explained Tooming. “These include enhanced surveillance, such as earlier and more frequent breast imaging, and in some cases, consideration of risk-reducing options. For high-risk variants such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, this may involve prophylactic surgery. However, such decisions are highly individual and should always be made in the context of genetic counselling, taking into account personal risk, age, and preferences.”

Of the 3,472 people who received testing, 87.6% were women, and 12.4% were men. The mean age at testing was 41, ten years younger than Estonia’s standard cancer screening age, but 78.6% of people tested were even younger. Alarmingly, people under 30 were most likely to test positive for pathogenic variants. However, the detection of dangerous variants in people over 71, when standard screening usually ends, indicates that continued attention is necessary for older patients too.

19.7% of the participants tested positive for pathogenic variants, a much larger proportion than would be expected in the general population. 23 different variants were identified, but almost 59% of those detected were accounted for by BRCA1 or BRCA2 variants.

Just under a third of the participants had a family member carrying a known variant, and of this group, 41.8% carried a relevant variant themselves. Among the remaining two-thirds, 8% carried pathogenic variants. Male participants were unlikely to get tested if there were no known pathogenic variants in the family, but a third of them tested positive for at least one.

“The results support earlier genetic risk assessment rather than simply lowering screening age thresholds,” said Tooming. “They also strongly support broader and more systematic genetic testing among relatives, particularly when a familial pathogenic variant is identified. The relatively high detection rate we observed, including among individuals without a previously known familial variant, suggests that broader access to multigene panel testing could improve identification of at-risk individuals.”

Known unknowns

The scientists point out that changes in the quality and accessibility of testing over time could affect their findings. Only three people were tested in 2007, while 731 underwent testing in 2023. An analysis of the data also showed that more pathogenic variants were identified after 2015, when next-generation sequencing became readily available. This means that many patients whose variants would be identified today may have been missed in earlier years. More research is also needed to understand the prevalence of high-risk variants in other populations.

“Genetic testing and earlier risk assessment in families affected by breast and ovarian cancer can inform healthcare policy and guide the implementation of preventive programs,” said Tooming. “In the future, we would like to see population-based screening approaches beyond family-history criteria, strategies to improve male participation in genetic testing, and experimental work aimed at understanding the biological and clinical impact of less common or moderate-risk pathogenic variants.”

Journal

Frontiers in Genetics

DOI

10.3389/fgene.2026.1814500

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2026.1814500/full

Article Publication Date

7-Jul-2026

Friday, July 03, 2026

A portable ultrasound system could make reliable breast imaging more accessible

The new technology, which generates high-resolution, 3D images of breast tissue, requires no expertise to operate and could be used at home.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

For people at high risk of developing breast cancer, yearly mammograms may not be enough to detect tumors early. To make earlier diagnosis easier, an MIT team has developed portable detectors based on ultrasound, which could be used much more frequently.

In a new paper, the team reports that they have improved the resolution of the images produced by their system, making it easier to spot potential tumors, as well as cysts and microcalcifications. The researchers also created a user interface that makes it simple to use the ultrasound probe, even for people with no expertise in ultrasonography.

This system, they believe, could not only enable earlier detection, but also allow for long-term monitoring following breast cancer treatment — either in a doctor’s office or at home.

“At each time interval, the computer interface guides you to position the device in exactly the same location, which is important for the longitudinal monitoring of a given tissue. It’s very intuitive and quite easy to use,” says Canan Dagdeviren, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT and the senior author of the study.

Former MIT postdoc Md Osman Goni Nayeem and MIT graduate students Shrihari Viswanath and Hyeokjun Yoon are the lead authors of the paper, which appears today in Nature Communications.

Higher-quality imaging

While many people receive annual mammograms to check for breast cancer, it is possible for cancer to develop in between these annual screenings. These cancers, known as interval cancers, tend to be more aggressive, and they account for 20 to 30 percent of all breast cancer cases.

After losing an aunt to an interval breast cancer in 2015, Dagdeviren was motivated to develop a screening technique that would be more effective on women with dense breast tissue and could be performed more often than mammography. She decided on ultrasound, which uses sound waves to create images of tissue. Ultrasounds are often used to follow up on abnormal mammograms, but current ultrasound technology requires large equipment and a trained operator.

Earlier this year, Dagdeviren’s lab published a study in which they demonstrated a small ultrasound probe attached to an acquisition and processing module that is a little larger than a smartphone. This compact system can create a 3D image of the entire breast by scanning just two or three locations.

In the new Nature Communications study, the researchers reported several advances that allow for higher resolution imaging and greater ease of use.

One key advance is the addition of a “backing layer” to the ultrasound transducer. This layer helps to contain and focus the ultrasound waves, improving the resolution and quality of the resulting images. It also increases the range of soundwave frequencies that can be absorbed, and reduces both acoustical noise and electrical noise, further enhancing the images.

“With the backing layer, the device produces more accurate and sharper images, with a wider operating range of frequencies,” Nayeem says.

To further improve the quality of the images, the researchers designed an algorithm that adaptively performs a process called beamforming. This algorithm allows the system to compensate for differences in the speed at which sound waves travel through different types of tissue, such as skin and fat.

“What we are trying to do is predict the speed of sound properties of the tissue you’re imaging, and then use that to reconstruct the image more accurately. We see up to a 10 percent improvement in the resolution just by applying this technique,” Viswanath says.

The researchers asked 10 volunteers, who were not experts in ultrasound technology, to use the system to try to identify small micro targets embedded in a “tissue phantom” — a gel-like material engineered to mimic human tissue. Participants had a much higher success rate locating the spheres when they used the new system than when they used a traditional ultrasound probe.

A user-friendly system

For the new version of this system, the researchers also created a user interface, displayed on a computer screen, that guides the user to place the probe in the correct location. This could be especially important for tracking progression of treatments such as neoadjuvent therapy, or long-term monitoring of known abnormalities such as fibroadenomas or microcalcifications.

In a trial with seven people, the researchers found that the users were able to accurately place the probe in the correct location each time they did a scan.

“Conventionally, you need an operator to move the probe around the breast, but we made a computer-vision interface for users to do it by themselves. This is very user-friendly and it shows live images on the screen,” Yoon says.

For future versions of this technology, the researchers hope to create an interface that could be used with a cellphone or tablet, making the system easier to carry. In addition to enabling earlier diagnosis, this type of system could make ultrasound more accessible to patients in areas where there aren’t enough trained ultrasound technicians, the researchers say.

Dagdeviren and some of her students now hope to form a company to work toward making the technology commercially available. While breast cancer diagnosis is their first target application, they hope to expand it to many others.

“The technology is so versatile that it can be used for any soft tissue imaging, from ovarian cancer to measuring endometriosis progression, or fetal monitoring,” Dagdeviren says.

###

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, the Lyda Hill Foundation, the MIT Media Lab Consortium, and a Tata Center Technology and Design Fellowship.

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-74708-3

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Portable, real-time 3D ultrasound for operator-independent breast imaging

Article Publication Date

1-Jul-2026

A common heart drug may have a secret life as a cancer fighter — and scientists now know why

The puzzle behind a heart drug's unexpected anticancer activity

Bentham Science Publishers

Article by Dr. Safa Daoud Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan E-mail: s_daoud@asu.edu.jo

The Puzzle Behind a Heart Drug's Unexpected Anticancer Activity

Dobutamine is a well-known drug given intravenously to patients in acute heart failure, where it stimulates the heart to pump more effectively. Over the past decade, however, a growing body of research has reported something surprising: the drug also suppresses the growth of cancer cells in bone tumours (osteosarcoma), stomach cancer, and multiple myeloma. No one could fully explain why. A research team led by Dr. Safa Daoud, from the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan, and co-led by Dr. Mutasem O. Taha from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, The University of Jordan, noticed a telling pattern in the scientific literature: all the cancers where dobutamine shows activity also tend to produce unusually high levels of a protein called ROCK2 — a molecular switch that, when left unchecked, pushes tumour cells to grow, spread, and resist treatment. The team's central question was whether dobutamine's anticancer effects could be explained, at least in part, by its ability to block ROCK2 directly.

Three Lines of Evidence, One Consistent Answer

To test this idea rigorously, the researchers used three separate approaches. First, in a laboratory enzyme assay, they measured dobutamine's ability to switch off purified ROCK2 protein. The drug blocked ROCK2 activity in a clean, dose-dependent manner, with a half-inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 7.1 µM — a finding that represents the first direct proof that dobutamine can inhibit this cancer-driving enzyme. Second, the team moved to living cancer cells. They selected two cell lines chosen specifically for their contrasting ROCK2 levels: HepG2 liver cancer cells, which produce large amounts of ROCK2, and T-47D breast cancer cells, which produce relatively little. If ROCK2 were truly dobutamine's target inside the cell, the drug should hit the first line harder. That is exactly what happened: dobutamine was 3.7 times more potent against the high-ROCK2 HepG2 cells than against the low-ROCK2 T-47D cells — a statistically significant difference that tied the drug's cancer-fighting effect directly to its target. Third, using computer modelling of the ROCK2 protein structure, the team showed precisely how dobutamine fits into the enzyme's active site, forming several stabilising molecular bonds with key residues in the region where the enzyme normally uses energy to drive cancer-cell division.

What This Means for the Future of Cancer Drug Development

The research does more than explain a long-standing mystery. It opens a practical path forward. Dobutamine has been used clinically for over 40 years, meaning its safety profile and behaviour in the human body are well understood — a significant head start compared to a brand-new compound. The study also maps out, atom by atom, where the drug's chemical structure falls short: a somewhat flexible chain and several polar groups make binding to ROCK2 less efficient than it could be. The authors propose concrete chemical modifications — such as locking the flexible chain into a ring structure and reducing unnecessary polarity — that could produce a new generation of ROCK2-blocking cancer drugs built on the dobutamine framework. While further laboratory and animal studies are needed before any clinical application can be considered, this work establishes dobutamine as a validated starting point for developing more targeted and potent ROCK2 inhibitors for cancer treatment, and adds it to a growing list of cardiovascular drugs — alongside propranolol and carvedilol — that are finding a second life in oncology.

Read the published article here: https://bit.ly/4wpKU9R

The Open Medicinal Chemistry

DOI: 10.2174/0118741045455658260423122147

If you want to publish your article please visit : https://bit.ly/4de0DRi

Journal

The Open Medicinal Chemistry Journal

DOI

10.2174/0118741045455658260423122147

Method of Research

News article

Article Title

ROCK2 Inhibition Underlying the Anticancer Effects of Dobutamine: A Novel Proposed Mechanism

Thursday, July 02, 2026

The broader a fungus’s diet, the better it kills insects and helps plants

University of Maryland

UMD entomologists have discovered that a single underlying trait—metabolic breadth, or the range of nutrients a fungus can use—links its ability to kill insects, partner with plants and thrive in different ecological roles. Rather than trading one lifestyle for another, some fungi become better at all of them.

Many fungi lead triple lives—acting as deadly insect pathogens, decomposers in the soil and helpful partners living inside and transferring insect-derived nitrogen to plant roots. Scientists have long wondered what allows a single species to pull off these very different roles.

A new study offers a surprisingly simple answer: metabolic flexibility—the ability to use many different food sources. Working with the insect-killing fungus Metarhizium robertsii, University of Maryland entomologists found that strains capable of using a wider range of nutrients were both faster and deadlier at killing insects and more effective at colonizing plant roots. The findings were published July 1, 2026, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We expected to see a trade-off—that becoming a better plant partner would come at the cost of being a good killer or vice versa," said the study’s senior author Raymond St. Leger, a Distinguished University Professor of Entomology at UMD. "Instead, the two abilities rise and fall together, and what links them is the fungus's underlying nutritional flexibility."

Different strains, different lives

The researchers combined genome-based analysis of eight M. robertsii strains spanning the species' evolutionary tree with laboratory tests measuring virulence, plant-root colonization, toxin activity and growth on 95 different nutrients. They chose to study M. robertsii because it’s already used worldwide as a natural biological control agent against insect pests and is increasingly being explored for its ability to promote crop growth.

St. Leger and entomology postdoctoral associate Huiyu Sheng (Ph.D. ’24, entomology) found that the strains split into two distinct groups. The fungal strains that diverged early (at least 6 million years ago) behaved like “sleepers.” They kill insects slowly but pour resources into multiplying inside the host and producing huge numbers of spores, allowing them to survive until they encounter another host. Fungal strains that diverged more recently behave like "creepers." They germinate quickly on both insect skin and plant roots, kill rapidly, often deploy paralyzing toxins and grow as creeping threads from insect cadavers onto nearby roots, rather than forming spores.

The key difference between these two fungal strategies was metabolic breadth—the range of nutrients each strain could feed on. Fungi that could grow on a wider menu of sugars, amino acids and organic acids consistently proved better at both infecting insects and colonizing plant roots.

New thinking, new applications

The new study’s results reframe some insect-killing fungi as broadly "environmentally competent" organisms—whose ability to attack insects and partner with plants comes from the same nutritional toolkit. The team’s findings provide a useful model for understanding how microbes evolve the capacity to switch ecological roles.

"Instead of forcing fungi to choose between being insect killers or plant partners, evolution appears to have favored strains that are simply better at making use of whatever resources they encounter," St. Leger said. "Their versatility begins with metabolism."

The research also has practical implications for agriculture and could help researchers select fungal strains tailored for different agricultural goals. Broadly metabolizing strains of fungi could provide rapid suppression of insect pests while colonizing crop roots and promoting plant growth in the field. In contrast, fungal strains that produce large numbers of spores may be better suited for longer-term pest control.

“What we’ve learned could help growers use fungal pathogens more effectively,” St. Leger said.

###

The paper, "Metabolic breadth links insect pathogenicity and plant association in Metarhizium robertsii," by Huiyu Sheng and Raymond J. St. Leger, was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on July 1, 2026.

Research reported in this release was supported 100% by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Agricultural Research Service Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grants Program under grant number 2022-33522-38272 and the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Plant Biotic Interactions Program under grant number DEB-1911777. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the official views of the USDA or the NSF.

About the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences

The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland educates more than 10,000 future scientific leaders in its undergraduate and graduate programs each year. The college's 10 departments and seven interdisciplinary research centers foster scientific discovery with annual sponsored research funding exceeding $250 million.

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.260869412

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Metabolic breadth links insect pathogenicity and plant association in Metarhizium robertsii

Article Publication Date

1-Jul-2026

Unearthing new cancer treatments from fungi

Penn Engineers led by Xue ‘Sherry’ Gao have developed a gene-editing tool built specifically for fungi, unlocking a hidden library of molecules—including some with early anti-cancer promise—from one of biology’s most overlooked kingdoms.

University of Pennsylvania

Fungal sample — image:
Three fungal colonies in a single dish. Cultures like these yielded eight molecules new to science, three of them with early anti-cancer activity.
view more
Credit: Eric Sucar / University of Pennsylvania

Researchers have spent decades—and billions of dollars—sequencing animal and crop genomes, but fungi have historically been the forgotten middle child of genomics, only noticed when they’re ruining bread or colonizing toes.

“This neglect is kind of remarkable considering how fungi have shaped modern medicine,” says chemical and biomolecular engineer Xue “Sherry” Gao. “From the serendipitous discovery of penicillin to cholesterol-lowering statins, we owe many recent breakthroughs in longevity to fungal chemistry. But despite this, the vast majority of the fungal kingdom remains a black box.”

A main driver for this mystery is that when grown in sterile lab conditions, fungi turn off the drug-producing gene pathways they synthesize in the wild to fight off bacteria.

“To turn those silent pathways back on, we needed a powerful way to precisely manipulate fungal genome, such as editing their master regulatory genes, but traditional tools weren’t up to the task,” Gao says.

Now, Gao and her team at the School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a novel genome editing tool, called fPE7max, to navigate the complex genetic architecture of thread-like molds known as filamentous fungi—think Aspergillus, or the Penicillium that gave the world penicillin—and finally unlock the secrets of this overlooked kingdom.

Their findings are published in Nature Biotechnology.

“We isolated 18 distinct complex molecules, eight of which possessed chemical structures entirely new to science,” says first author Chunxiao Sun, a postdoctoral researcher in the Gao Lab. “Of these uncovered molecules, three exhibited promising anti-cancer properties. These molecules can serve as lead compounds for disease treatment, providing a vital new pipeline for drug discovery.”

Sun says that one novel molecule showed selective toxicity against human breast, hepatic, and leukemia cancer cells.

Rewriting the genomics textbook for fungi

Over the last decade, CRISPR-Cas9 has been the headline-grabbing gene-splicing tool. But Gao explains that in filamentous fungi, which are rich sources of antibacterial compounds, it can be a blunt instrument, resulting in unintended mutations.

A newer technology called prime editing avoids double-strand breaks entirely, allowing for precise control over DNA sequences. But adapting prime editing for the fungal kingdom was a challenge.

First, the team had to ensure their genetic instructions actually survived the trip through the cell. Prime editing relies on a guide RNA—a molecular instruction manual that tells the tool where to go and what new code to write. But when researchers try to make massive edits, these instruction manuals can get unreasonably long, making them fragile and prone to degrading before the editing job is done.

Their workaround was integrating a special protein—fLa—into their tool. fLa acts as a sturdy, protective binder that shields the fragile RNA instructions, allowing fPE7max to handle the massive DNA insertions and deletions that cause other tools to break down.

Second, the team had to stop the fungal cells from spotting the researchers’ new edits, flagging them as errors, and reverting the DNA back to its original sequence. To outsmart that, the team incorporated a specialized protein that mutes the fungus’s natural repair system just long enough for the new genetic code to permanently take hold.

Ancient organisms, new science

The resulting platform, fPE7max, achieves editing efficiency approaching 90%. And by using fPE7max to flip the switch on these silent fungal gene clusters, the team uncovered previously unknown compounds.

To test their new tool, the researchers targeted the regulatory sequences of a master gene called laeA, which controls a vast network of biosynthetic pathways. By using fPE7max to precisely edit out the molecular roadblocks that naturally keep this gene’s translation repressed, they successfully awakened silent gene clusters across several different fungal species, finding molecules with promising anti-cancer properties.

“It’s a compelling proof-of-concept demonstrating that the next generation of life-saving therapeutics might already exist in nature,” Gao adds.

Looking ahead, the team plans to deploy fPE7max across a much wider array of fungal species to continue hunting for novel natural products. The researchers hope to move away from the treasure-hunt approach of searching for wild fungi that might produce useful drugs and into an era of systematic optimization.

Xue “Sherry” Gao is the Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the Department of Bioengineering, and the Center for Precision Engineering for Health at the University of Pennsylvania.

Chunxiao Sun is a postdoctoral researcher in the Gao Lab at Penn Engineering.

Other authors include Chris Keum, Qiuyue Nie, Yihui Shen, and Naomi Straub of Penn Engineering.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH grant R35GM138207) and startup funds provided by the University of Pennsylvania.

Journal

Nature Biotechnology

DOI

10.1038/s41587-026-03202-4

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Prime editing for precise genome engineering and modulation of fungal metabolism

Article Publication Date

30-Jun-2026