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While coral reefs in Australia have historically been a showcase of conventional management informed by research, recent declines in coral cover have triggered efforts to innovate and integrate intervention and restoration actions into management frameworks. Here we outline the multi-faceted intervention approaches that have developed in Australia since 2017, from newly implemented in-water programs, research to enhance coral resilience and investigations into socio-economic perspectives on restoration goals. We describe in-water projects using coral gardening, substrate stabilisation, coral repositioning, macro-algae removal, and larval-based restoration techniques. Three areas of research focus are also presented to illustrate the breadth of Australian research on coral restoration, (1) the transdisciplinary Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), one of the world’s largest research and development programs focused on coral reefs, (2) interventions to enhance coral performance under climate change, and (3) research into socio-cultural perspectives. Together, these projects and the recent research focus reflect an increasing urgency for action to confront the coral reef crisis, develop new and additional tools to manage coral reefs, and the consequent increase in funding opportunities and management appetite for implementation. The rapid progress in trialling and deploying coral restoration in Australia builds on decades of overseas experience, and advances in research and development are showing positive signs that coral restoration can be a valuable tool to improve resilience at local scales (i.e., high early survival rates across a variety of methods and coral species, strong community engagement with local stakeholders). RRAP is focused on creating interventions to help coral reefs at multiple scales, from micro scales (i.e., interventions targeting small areas within a specific reef site) to large scales (i.e., interventions targeting core ecosystem function and social-economic values at multiple select sites across the Great Barrier Reef) to resist, adapt to and recover from the impacts of climate change. None of these interventions aim to single-handedly restore the entirety of the Great Barrier Reef, nor do they negate the importance of urgent climate change mitigation action.

Coral reef ecosystems are under increasing pressure from local and regional stressors and a changing climate. Current management focuses on reducing stressors to allow for natural recovery, but in many areas where coral reefs are damaged, natural recovery can be restricted, delayed or interrupted because of unstable, unconsolidated coral fragments, or rubble. Rubble fields are a natural component of coral reefs, but repeated or high-magnitude disturbances can prevent natural cementation and consolidation processes, so that coral recruits fail to survive. A suite of interventions have been used to target this issue globally, such as using mesh to stabilise rubble, removing the rubble to reveal hard substrate and deploying rocks or other hard substrates over the rubble to facilitate recruit survival. Small, modular structures can be used at multiple scales, with or without attached coral fragments, to create structural complexity and settlement surfaces. However, these can introduce foreign materials to the reef, and a limited understanding of natural recovery processes exists for the potential of this type of active intervention to successfully restore local coral reef structure. This review synthesises available knowledge about the ecological role of coral rubble, natural coral recolonisation and recovery rates and the potential benefits and risks associated with active interventions in this rapidly evolving field. Fundamental knowledge gaps include baseline levels of rubble, the structural complexity of reef habitats in space and time, natural rubble consolidation processes and the risks associated with each intervention method. Any restoration intervention needs to be underpinned by risk assessment, and the decision to repair rubble fields must arise from an understanding of when and where unconsolidated substrate and lack of structure impair natural reef recovery and ecological function. Monitoring is necessary to ascertain the success or failure of the intervention and impacts of potential risks, but there is a strong need to specify desired outcomes, the spatial and temporal context and indicators to be measured. With a focus on the Great Barrier Reef, we synthesise the techniques, successes and failures associated with rubble stabilisation and the use of small structures, review monitoring methods and indicators, and provide recommendations to ensure that we learn from past projects.

While coral reefs in Australia have historically been a showcase of conventional management informed by research, recent declines in coral cover have triggered efforts to innovate and integrate intervention and restoration actions into management frameworks. Here we outline the multi-faceted intervention approaches that have developed in Australia since 2017, from newly implemented in-water programs, research to enhance coral resilience and investigations into socio-economic perspectives on restoration goals. We describe in-water projects using coral gardening, substrate stabilisation, coral repositioning, macro-algae removal, and larval-based restoration techniques. Three areas of research focus are also presented to illustrate the breadth of Australian research on coral restoration, (1) the transdisciplinary Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), one of the world's largest research and development programs focused on coral reefs, (2) interventions to enhance coral performance under climate change, and (3) research into socio-cultural perspectives. Together, these projects and the recent research focus reflect an increasing urgency for action to confront the coral reef crisis, develop new and additional tools to manage coral reefs, and the consequent increase in funding opportunities and management appetite for implementation. The rapid progress in trialling and deploying coral restoration in Australia builds on decades of overseas experience, and advances in research and development are showing positive signs that coral restoration can be a valuable tool to improve resilience at local scales (i.e., high early survival rates across a variety of methods and coral species, strong community engagement with local stakeholders). RRAP is focused on creating interventions to help coral reefs at multiple scales, from micro scales (i.e., interventions targeting small areas within a specific reef site) to large scales (i.e., interventions targeting core ecosystem function and social-economic values at multiple select sites across the Great Barrier Reef) to resist, adapt to and recover from the impacts of climate change. None of these interventions aim to single-handedly restore the entirety of the Great Barrier Reef, nor do they negate the importance of urgent climate change mitigation action.

[...] in terms of freedom and democracy, who really got the most votes in the last presidential election?

Deciphering the structural variation across tumour genomes is crucial to determine the events driving tumour progression and better understand tumour adaptation and evolution. High grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is an exemplar tumour type showing extreme, but poorly characterised structural diversity. Here, we comprehensively describe the mutational landscape driving HGSOC, exploiting a large (N = 324), deeply whole genome sequenced dataset. We reveal two divergent evolutionary trajectories, affecting patient survival and involving differing genomic environments. One involves homologous recombination repair deficiency (HRD) while the other is dominated by whole genome duplication (WGD) with frequent chromothripsis, breakage-fusion-bridges and extra-chromosomal DNA. These trajectories contribute to structural variation hotspots, containing candidate driver genes with significantly altered expression. While structural variation predominantly drives tumorigenesis, we find high mtDNA mutation loads associated with shorter patient survival. We show that a combination of mutations in the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes impact prognosis, suggesting strategies for patient stratification. Tumour evolution and heterogeneity in high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) remains poorly characterised. Here, the authors investigate the genomic landscape of HGSOC and reveal two distinct evolutionary trajectories associated with clinical outcomes.

Both protein nanoparticle and mRNA vaccines were clinically de-risked during the COVID-19 pandemic . These vaccine modalities have complementary strengths: antigen display on protein nanoparticles can enhance the magnitude, quality, and durability of antibody responses , while mRNA vaccines can be rapidly manufactured and elicit antigen-specific CD4 and CD8 T cells . Here we leverage a computationally designed icosahedral protein nanoparticle that was redesigned for optimal secretion from eukaryotic cells to develop an mRNA-launched nanoparticle vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. The nanoparticle, which displays 60 copies of a stabilized variant of the Wuhan-Hu-1 Spike receptor binding domain (RBD) , formed monodisperse, antigenically intact assemblies upon secretion from transfected cells. An mRNA vaccine encoding the secreted RBD nanoparticle elicited 5- to 28-fold higher levels of neutralizing antibodies than an mRNA vaccine encoding membrane-anchored Spike, induced higher levels of CD8 T cells than the same immunogen when delivered as an adjuvanted protein nanoparticle, and protected mice from vaccine-matched and -mismatched SARS-CoV-2 challenge. Our data establish that delivering protein nanoparticle immunogens via mRNA vaccines can combine the benefits of each modality and, more broadly, highlight the utility of computational protein design in genetic immunization strategies.

Deciphering the structural variation across tumour genomes is crucial to determine the events driving tumour progression and better understand tumour adaptation and evolution. High grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is an exemplar tumour type showing extreme, but poorly characterised structural diversity. We comprehensively describe the mutational landscape driving HGSOC, exploiting a large (N=324), deeply whole genome sequenced dataset. We reveal two divergent evolutionary trajectories, affecting patient survival and involving differing genomic environments. One involves homologous recombination repair deficiency (HRD) while the other is dominated by whole genome duplication (WGD) with frequent chromothripsis, breakage-fusion-bridges and extra-chromosomal DNA. These trajectories contribute to structural variation hotspots, containing novel candidate driver genes with significantly altered expression. While structural variation predominantly drives tumorigenesis, we also find high mtDNA mutation loads associated with shorter patient survival, and acting in combination with alterations in the nuclear genome to impact prognosis and suggesting new strategies for patient stratification.Competing Interest StatementCG recieves research funding from AstraZeneca, MSD, Novartis, GSK, BerGen Bio, Medannex, Roche, Verastem, Artios and personal fees from AstraZeneca, MSD, GSK, Clovis, Verastem, Takeda, Eisai, Cor2Ed, Peer Voice. PR received honoraria from AstraZeneca. RH received consultancy fees from GSK and DeciBio.