标签： Asia

BEIJING – A collaborative research initiative between the Institute of Chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS) and the National University of Singapore has delivered a landmark breakthrough in the development of optical metamaterials, a cutting-edge class of engineered materials that promise to revolutionize next-generation photonic and optical technologies.

Announced on April 24, 2026, the team’s work addresses one of the most persistent bottlenecks holding back the widespread commercial adoption of optical metamaterials: the inability to produce large, custom-designed sheets of the material without sacrificing cost efficiency or performance. The researchers’ findings, which outline a completely new framework for scalable manufacturing of these advanced materials, were officially published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal *Nature* on April 23, 2026.

For decades, optical metamaterials – which are defined by their precisely engineered micro- and nanoscale structural arrangements that manipulate light in ways impossible for natural materials – have faced a persistent manufacturing trade-off. Traditional fabrication methods were either capable of producing small, highly customized batches for research at high cost, or limited to low-cost mass production that could not accommodate tailored design specifications needed for specific applications. This imbalance has restricted the translation of lab-based optical metamaterial breakthroughs into real-world commercial and industrial uses, from advanced optical sensors to flexible display technologies and ultra-compact imaging systems.

The joint research team resolved this long-standing challenge by developing the world’s first roll-to-roll additive nano-printing platform, a custom-built manufacturing system that brings together the benefits of additive manufacturing with high-throughput continuous production. This new approach achieves simultaneous synergistic optimization of both the material’s core optical properties and the flexible structural design required for diverse applications. By enabling low-cost, large-volume production while retaining the ability to create customized, multi-scale metamaterial structures, the new fabrication paradigm opens entirely new research pathways for the field of multi-scale optical metamaterials and unlocks practical new opportunities for micro-nano photonics applications across multiple industries.

The breakthrough comes as global research into metamaterials accelerates, driven by growing demand for advanced optical components that enable smaller, faster, and more efficient optical and photonic technologies. The team’s publication of their work in *Nature* underscores the significance of the advance for the international scientific community.

A team of Shanghai-based researchers has made a landmark advance in Alzheimer’s disease research, identifying a ‘brake’ gene that can slow the degenerative condition’s progression after developing the world’s first in vivo functional map of regulatory switches in astrocytes, the critical support cells that protect brain neurons. The discovery, which has already been successfully validated in Alzheimer’s mouse models, opens an entirely new pathway for developing life-changing treatments for neurodegenerative disorders.

The collaborative research project, led by scientists from the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital, and biotechnology company Genemagic, was published on April 24, 2026, in the peer-reviewed journal *Science*. Unlike most existing Alzheimer’s therapies that focus on targeting beta-amyloid plaques, this work centers on the understudied role of astrocytes in disease progression, offering a complementary approach that could boost treatment outcomes for patients.

Astrocytes are abundant star-shaped cells in the human brain that work to sustain healthy neuronal function. But when Alzheimer’s develops, these critical support cells become dysfunctional, triggering a chain reaction that speeds up the death of neurons and worsens cognitive decline. For years, researchers have understood that stopping this harmful transformation requires identifying the transcription factors — molecular ‘switches’ that control astrocyte activity — but with more than 1,000 distinct transcription factors in the human body, pinpointing the molecules critical to astrocyte health has remained a major, unaddressed challenge.

To solve this problem, the research team developed an innovative in vivo high-throughput sequencing platform called iGOF-Perturb-seq, which enables large-scale, simultaneous analysis of transcription factor function in living organisms. Using adeno-associated viruses engineered to specifically target astrocytes, the team delivered genetic ‘instruction packages’ holding nearly 1,000 different transcription factors into astrocytes in live mouse brains, with each package tagged with a unique molecular barcode to track its impact. The researchers then used single-cell sequencing technology to analyze close to 400,000 individual astrocytes at once, linking each cell’s functional state to the specific transcription factor it had received. This groundbreaking process allowed the team to assemble the first complete functional map of astrocyte regulatory switches ever created.

“This map is like a treasure map, helping scientists quickly identify candidate master regulators that can prevent astrocytes from becoming dysfunctional,” explained Zhou Haibo, the lead scientist of the study. After screening the map for promising candidates, the team narrowed the list down to 39 potential molecules, and after rigorous testing, identified the transcription factor Ferd3l as the most potent regulator capable of repairing dysfunctional astrocytes.

To confirm the gene’s therapeutic potential, the research team tested Ferd3l in mouse models engineered to develop human Alzheimer’s disease. The team activated the Ferd3l gene in the mice’s astrocytes via intravenous injection, and the treated animals saw a dramatic improvement in their cognitive impairments. In standard cognitive tests including object recognition and maze navigation, treated mice performed nearly as well as healthy control mice.

Further analysis of the results showed that Ferd3l helps dysfunctional astrocytes re-establish healthy, cooperative interactions with both neurons and microglia — the brain’s primary immune cells — restoring functional order to the disrupted cellular environment that characterizes Alzheimer’s, according to Zhang Liansheng, first author of the published study.

The complete functional map of astrocyte regulators will be shared openly with research institutions and pharmaceutical companies across the globe, allowing scientists to use the resource to identify similar ‘brake’ genes and therapeutic targets for a wide range of other neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and major depressive disorder. The team also noted that their work creates a shared library of potential new drug targets for neurological diseases, which can be expanded over time to support the development of personalized precision therapies for patients.

The research comes as China has already made progress in expanding Alzheimer’s treatment access: an innovative beta-amyloid targeting therapy launched in 2025 is now covered by supplemental public health insurance in major Chinese cities including Beijing, with clinical data showing sustained patient benefits even after treatment is discontinued following successful plaque clearance.

Zhou noted that moving the discovery from foundational research to real-world clinical applications will be the primary focus of the team’s upcoming work, bringing new hope to millions of people worldwide living with Alzheimer’s and related neurodegenerative conditions.

In a landmark breakthrough for lunar exploration, a team of Chinese scientists has made a significant new contribution to global planetary science: the discovery of two previously unknown lunar minerals, sourced from the precious lunar surface samples retrieved by China’s Chang’e 5 mission. The announcement of the find, first reported by China Daily and updated on April 24, 2026, marks another key milestone for China’s expanding deep space exploration program, adding new concrete data to the international scientific community’s understanding of the Moon’s geological composition and formation history.

Chang’e 5, China’s first mission to successfully collect and return lunar samples to Earth, touched down on the northern region of the Moon’s Oceanus Procellarum in late 2020, bringing back roughly 1.7 kilograms of volcanic basalt and regolith from a previously unsampled young region of the lunar surface. These samples have been the subject of ongoing, rigorous analysis by Chinese planetary scientists in the years following their return, with the latest discovery opening new avenues for research into lunar volcanic activity and the evolution of the inner solar system.

The identification of two new mineral species is a rare and notable achievement in lunar science, as most lunar minerals have already been cataloged from previous Soviet sample-return missions and Apollo program specimens collected in the 1960s and 1970s. This discovery makes China the third country in the world to successfully identify a new lunar mineral from returned samples, underscoring the rapid progress of the nation’s space science capabilities beyond Earth’s orbit. It also aligns with broader planned advancements in China’s deep space exploration roadmap, which includes the upcoming Tianwen 3 mission scheduled to retrieve samples from Mars by approximately 2031, as outlined in recently updated mission plans shared by Chinese space authorities.

Scientific communities around the world have repeatedly emphasized the value of new lunar sample data, particularly from the young geologic region sampled by Chang’e 5. This new discovery is expected to support ongoing research into the timing of the Moon’s volcanic cooling, the distribution of resources across the lunar surface, and the origins of impact events that have shaped the Earth-Moon system over billions of years. The find also highlights the critical role that sample-return missions play in advancing human knowledge of planetary bodies, complementing data gathered by remote sensing orbiters and rover missions.