India’s Aditya-L1 spacecraft launched in 2023. Next year, it will observe the Sun during its peak activity phase.Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation via AP/Alamy
AI for science
Research powered by artificial intelligence made leaps this year, and it is here to stay. AI ‘agents’ that integrate several large language models (LLMs) to carry out complex, multi-step processes are likely to be more widely used, some with little human oversight. The coming year might even bring the first consequential scientific advances made by AI. But heavier use could also expose serious failures in some systems. Researchers have already reported errors that AI agents are prone to, such as the deletion of data.
Next year will also bring techniques that move beyond LLMs, which are expensive to train. Newer approaches focus on designing small-scale AI models that learn from a limited pool of data and can specialize in solving specific reasoning puzzles. These systems do not generate text, but process mathematical representations of information. This year, one such tiny AI model beat massive LLMs at a logic test.
Gene-editing momentum
Next year could see the launch of two clinical trials to develop personalized gene therapies for children with rare genetic disorders. The efforts expand on the treatment of KJ Muldoon, a baby boy with a rare metabolic disorder who received a CRIPSR therapy tailored to correct his specific disease-causing mutation.
The team that treated Muldoon plans to seek approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to run a clinical trial in Philadelphia that will test gene-editing therapies in more children with rare metabolic disorders. These conditions are caused by variants in seven genes that can be addressed with the same type of gene editing as was used in Muldoon’s therapy. Another team hopes to begin a similar trial for genetic disorders of the immune system next year.
Artemis II crew members Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen with the Orion crew module.Credit: NASA
Massive trial
A UK clinical trial of a single blood test that detects around 50 types of cancer before symptoms begin is expected to report results next year. The test screens for bits of DNA that cancer cells release into the blood, and can home in on the tissue type or organ that the signal comes from. The trial involved more than 140,000 participants, and if the results are promising, UK health authorities plan to roll out the tool across hospitals.
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