Hello Nature readers,
This week, we learn that breaking the garbage-disposal system of a cell can drive cancer, discover the signalling cascade that triggers muscle wasting, and hear that people who smoke after cancer are more likely to experience fatigue and pain.

Cell's broken 'vacuum cleaner' drives cancer

Mutations in a protein that is responsible for cellular garbage disposal seem to speed up melanoma development. The protein cyclin-dependent kinase 13 (CDK13) usually regulates a team of proteins that clear away mistake-ridden RNA. A study in zebrafish found that this protein malfunctions when mutated, causing defunct RNA to pile up and melanoma to progress faster. "The vacuum cleaner was broken," says oncologist and study leader Megan Insco. The researchers found that around 21% of human melanoma tumours also had CDK13 mutations.

Challenges facing the new NIH head

Cancer surgeon Monica Bertagnolli has been nominated
by President Joe Biden to lead the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her first challenge will be to withstand questioning from the US Congress. "There is a certain art to going to Capitol Hill and taking friendly and unfriendly fire," says Jennifer Zeitzer, director of public affairs at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. "But I have unwavering faith in her ability to do so." Early in her leadership, Bertagnolli is also likely to grapple with threats to funding, diversity issues and the politicization of science.

Human genome 2.0

More than two decades after the first human genome was sequenced, scientists have completed a draft 'pangenome', which includes the genetic sequences of 47 people from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. "This is like going from black-and-white television to 1080p," says geneticist Keolu Fox. The diversification will help scientists to study the wide variation in human diseases.

Muscle-wasting protein identified

Cachexia, a condition in which the muscles start to degrade in people with cancer and other diseases, seems to be triggered by the protein EDA2 and its receptor. Researchers found that the EDA2 receptor was overexpressed in the skeletal muscles of people and mice with various diseases that cause muscle atrophy. When muscle cells were exposed to the EDA2 protein in the lab, they shrank. And when mice were injected with a virus that expresses this protein, they lost muscle mass at the injection site. This discovery may not yield a pharmaceutical 'magic bullet' that can treat cachexia, but it could be combined with nutritional interventions and exercise to help reverse muscle loss, write molecular immunologists Laura Antonio-Herrera and Andreas Bergthaler.

More reasons not to smoke after cancer

Continuing to smoke or vape after being diagnosed with cancer is associated with greater fatigue, pain and emotional problems. In a study of around 1,400 adult cancer survivors, those who continued to smoke or vape had worse symptoms. Most people try to quit smoking after the shock of a cancer diagnosis, but the majority pick up the habit again.

Zika study spills natural killer cell secrets

When a foetus is infected with the Zika virus, maternal immune cells called Natural Killer Cells are recruited to the site. Researchers studying this interaction have discovered how natural killer cells are called to action, a finding that could be repurposed in cancer immunotherapies. Natural killer cells have the receptor NKp46 on their cell surface, which recognizes a protein called calreticulin on the surface of cells under physiological stress, such as Zika-infected cells or cancer cells. When researchers knocked out the gene encoding calreticulin in mice, natural killer cells did a worse job of killing Zika-infected cells.

Weight gain early in life predicts cancer

Men are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer later in life if they put on weight as young adults. Adding a kilogram of weight per year between the ages of 17 and 29 was associated with a 13% increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer and a 27% increased risk of fatal prostate cancer, a yet-to-be-published analysis of a quarter of a million Swedish men found. "Avoiding a steep weight increase that commonly occurs in young adulthood may reduce the risk of incident and fatal prostate cancer," the researchers write.