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The increasing incorporation of technology into the health field is leading to greater precision in healthcare; however, advancements in cybersecurity measures are still required. According to a 2016 report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute, the frequency of data breaches in the healthcare industry has been rising since 2010 [1], and it is now among the sectors most targeted by cyberattacks globally [2]. Due to its immutability, the information accessed through health data breaches is of particular interest to criminals [3]. Blood type, past surgeries and diagnoses, and other personal health information are contained in an individual’s medical file. As these records include private data such as name, date of birth, insurance and health provider information, as well as health and genetic information, it is not possible to restore privacy or to reverse psychosocial harm when private data are compromised.These sorts of attacks are not only a threat to patients’ identity and finances, but they can also impede hospital operations and place the health and well-being of patients at risk. The United Kingdom’s National Health System hospitals, which suffered from the WannaCry ransomware attacks in May 2017, were forced to delay treatment plans and even to reroute incoming ambulances because they lost access to hospital information systems [4]. Among these operational delays and the financial consequences of data breaches and ransomware attacks, cyberattacks have long-term detrimental effects on the reputation and revenue of hospitals and health facilities.In response to these global attacks, the M8 Alliance undertook a project that began with a scoping review on cyberattacks against hospitals [5]. The review was a basis for several teleconferences conducted by a multidisciplinary team of experts. A workshop ensued in April 2018 at the bi-annual Geneva Health Forum (GHF). The purpose of these meetings was to exchange perceived threats, to promote interdisciplinary discussion, and to propose practical recommendations for hospitals across the globe. The onsite meeting at the GHF was organized as a World Health Summit Expert Meeting on the cybersecurity of hospitals [6].Here, we describe the most prominent discussions and recommendations from this working group for other security officers, hospital decision makers, vendors, manufacturers, industry representatives, and academics in the field. We begin with some case examples that serve to illustrate what these attacks look like and how health organizations have responded in the past. We then discuss the need to address cybersecurity through the product lifecycle in a preventative and proactive way as well as an approach to cybersecurity that values quality IT at the foundation with a stable application base and strong IT infrastructure. A risk-based approach is recommended, beginning with the identification of at-risk IT assets, followed by management of tradeoffs between risks and benefits, as well as different types of risks. The training of end-users is emphasized, alongside strategies such as vulnerability management and patch management, the controlled and restrictive granting of administrative privileges, and the development of incident response and business continuity plans. Information sharing between stakeholders is also recommended in order to build resilience. We conclude with a discussion on privacy-conscious data sharing and the unique challenges medical devices pose to security.

Magnetic skyrmions are chiral spin structures with a whirling configuration. Their topological properties, nanometre size and the fact that they can be moved by small current densities have opened a new paradigm for the manipulation of magnetization at the nanoscale. Chiral skyrmion structures have so far been experimentally demonstrated only in bulk materials and in epitaxial ultrathin films, and under an external magnetic field or at low temperature. Here, we report on the observation of stable skyrmions in sputtered ultrathin Pt/Co/MgO nanostructures at room temperature and zero external magnetic field. We use high lateral resolution X-ray magnetic circular dichroism microscopy to image their chiral Néel internal structure, which we explain as due to the large strength of the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction as revealed by spin wave spectroscopy measurements. Our results are substantiated by micromagnetic simulations and numerical models, which allow the identification of the physical mechanisms governing the size and stability of the skyrmions. Stable, single magnetic skyrmions are demonstrated at room temperature in ultrathin cobalt nanostructures.

Although magnetic domain walls could one day be used for information storage, the current challenges to their use are the irreproducibility of their displacement and the limits to their maximum speed. It is now shown that the Rashba effect can be used to provide a solution to both these issues. The propagation of magnetic domain walls induced by spin-polarized currents 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 has launched new concepts for memory and logic devices 6 , 7 , 8 . A wave of studies focusing on permalloy (NiFe) nanowires 9 has found evidence for high domain-wall velocities (100 m s −1 ; refs  10 , 11 ), but has also exposed the drawbacks of this phenomenon for applications. Often the domain-wall displacements are not reproducible 12 , their depinning from a thermally stable position is difficult 13 and the domain-wall structural instability (Walker breakdown 14 , 15 ) limits the maximum velocity 10 . Here, we show that the combined action of spin-transfer and spin–orbit torques offers a comprehensive solution to these problems. In an ultrathin Co nanowire, integrated in a trilayer with structural inversion asymmetry (SIA), the high spin-torque efficiency 16 facilitates the depinning and leads to high mobility, while the SIA-mediated Rashba field 17 , 18 , 19 controlling the domain-wall chirality stabilizes the Bloch domain-wall structure. Thus, the high-mobility regime is extended to higher current densities, allowing domain-wall velocities up to 400 m s −1 .

Cod goes its own way on immunity The genome of the Atlantic cod has been sequenced, and genomic analysis reveals an immune system that differs significantly from that in other vertebrates. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) II has been lost, as have some other genes that are essential for MHC II function. But there is an expansion in the number of MHC I genes and a unique composition for its toll-like receptor family. These compensatory changes in both adaptive and innate immunity mean that cod is no more susceptible to disease than most other vertebrates. These findings challenge current models of vertebrate immune evolution, and may facilitate the development of targeted vaccines for disease management in aquaculture. Atlantic cod ( Gadus morhua ) is a large, cold-adapted teleost that sustains long-standing commercial fisheries and incipient aquaculture 1 , 2 . Here we present the genome sequence of Atlantic cod, showing evidence for complex thermal adaptations in its haemoglobin gene cluster and an unusual immune architecture compared to other sequenced vertebrates. The genome assembly was obtained exclusively by 454 sequencing of shotgun and paired-end libraries, and automated annotation identified 22,154 genes. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) II is a conserved feature of the adaptive immune system of jawed vertebrates 3 , 4 , but we show that Atlantic cod has lost the genes for MHC II, CD4 and invariant chain (Ii) that are essential for the function of this pathway. Nevertheless, Atlantic cod is not exceptionally susceptible to disease under natural conditions 5 . We find a highly expanded number of MHC I genes and a unique composition of its Toll-like receptor (TLR) families. This indicates how the Atlantic cod immune system has evolved compensatory mechanisms in both adaptive and innate immunity in the absence of MHC II. These observations affect fundamental assumptions about the evolution of the adaptive immune system and its components in vertebrates.

We studied the symmetry of magnetic properties and the resulting magnetic textures in ultra-thin epitaxial Au0.67Pt0.33/Co/W(110), a model system exhibiting perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and interface Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI). As a peculiar feature, the C2v crystal symmetry induced by the Co/W interface results in an additional uniaxial in-plane magnetic anisotropy in the cobalt layer. Photo-emission electron microscopy with magnetic sensitivity reveals the formation of self-organised magnetic stripe domains oriented parallel to the hard in-plane magnetisation axis. We attribute this behavior to the lower domain wall energy when oriented along this axis, where both the DMI and the in-plane magnetic anisotropy favor a Néel domain wall configuration. The anisotropic domain wall energy also leads to the formation of elliptical skyrmion bubbles under a weak out-of-plane magnetic field.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified many common variant loci associated with asthma susceptibility, but few studies investigate the genetics underlying moderate-to-severe asthma risk. Here, we present a whole-genome sequencing study comparing 3181 moderate-to-severe asthma patients to 3590 non-asthma controls. We demonstrate that asthma risk is genetically correlated with lung function measures and that this component of asthma risk is orthogonal to the eosinophil genetics that also contribute to disease susceptibility. We find that polygenic scores for reduced lung function are associated with younger asthma age of onset. Genome-wide, seven previously reported common asthma variant loci and one previously reported lung function locus, near THSD4 , reach significance. We replicate association of the lung function locus in a recently published GWAS of moderate-to-severe asthma patients. We additionally replicate the association of a previously reported rare (minor allele frequency < 1%) coding variant in IL33 and show significant enrichment of rare variant burden in genes from common variant allergic disease loci. Our findings highlight the contribution of lung function genetics to moderate-to-severe asthma risk, and provide initial rare variant support for associations with moderate-to-severe asthma risk at several candidate genes from common variant loci.

The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa employs quorum sensing to govern the production of many virulence factors. Interference with quorum sensing signaling has therefore been put forward as an attractive approach to disarm this pathogen. Here, we analyzed the quorum quenching properties of natural and engineered (2-alkyl-)3-hydroxy-4(1H)-quinolone 2,4-dioxygenases (HQDs) that inactivate the P. aeruginosa signal molecule PQS (Pseudomonas quinolone signal; 2-heptyl-3-hydroxy-4(1H)-quinolone). When added exogenously to P. aeruginosa cultures, all HQDs tested significantly reduced the levels of PQS and other alkylquinolone-type secondary metabolites deriving from the biosynthetic pathway, such as the respiratory inhibitor 2-heptyl-4-hydroxyquinoline N-oxide. HQDs from Nocardia farcinica and Streptomyces bingchenggensis, which combine low KM values for PQS with thermal stability and resilience in the presence of P. aeruginosa exoproducts, respectively, attenuated production of the virulence factors pyocyanin and pyoverdine. A delay in mortality was observed when Galleria mellonella larvae were infected with P. aeruginosa suspensions treated with the S. bingchenggensis HQD or with inhibitors of alkylquinolone biosynthesis. Our data indicate that quenching of PQS signaling has potential as an anti-virulence strategy; however, an efficient anti-virulence therapy against P. aeruginosa likely requires a combination of agents addressing multiple targets.

The unsheathed flagellar filament of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 is composed of two highly homologous flagellins, FlaA, and the major structural unit, FlaB. We identified a gene cluster, SO_3261-SO_3265 (now sfmABCDE), that is required for the formation of a fully functional filament and for motility. The predicted function of the corresponding gene products strongly indicated a role in flagellin modification. Accordingly, loss of sfmABCDE results in a significant mass shift of both FlaA and FlaB. Mass spectroscopy analysis and single residue substitutions identified five serine residues in both flagellins that are modified via O-linkage. Modeling of the flagellin structures strongly suggests that at least four of the modified residues are exposed to the filament's surface. However, none of the five serine residues solely is crucial for function and assembly. Structural analysis of the flagellin modification revealed that it likely contains a nonulosonic acid (274 Da) linked to each glycosylated serine. The putative nonulosonic acid is further substituted with a 236 Da moiety which can carry additional methyl groups (250 Da, 264 Da). In addition, at least 5 lysine residues in FlaB and one in FlaA were found to be methylated. Based on homology comparisons we suggest that smfABCDE is required for species-specific flagellin modification in S. oneidensis MR-1.

Control of magnetization in ferromagnetic metals can be achieved through the spin torque of currents of spin-polarized electrons, usually injected externally. It is now shown that even without this spin-polarized injection, a current can induce strong spin torques through the Rashba effect. The efficiency of this process makes it a realistic candidate for room-temperature spintronic applications. Methods to manipulate the magnetization of ferromagnets by means of local electric fields 1 , 2 , 3 or current-induced spin transfer torque 4 , 5 , 6 allow the design of integrated spintronic devices with reduced dimensions and energy consumption compared with conventional magnetic field actuation 7 , 8 . An alternative way to induce a spin torque using an electric current has been proposed based on intrinsic spin–orbit magnetic fields 9 , 10 and recently realized in a strained low-temperature ferromagnetic semiconductor 11 . Here we demonstrate that strong magnetic fields can be induced in ferromagnetic metal films lacking structure inversion symmetry through the Rashba effect. Owing to the combination of spin–orbit and exchange interactions, we show that an electric current flowing in the plane of a Co layer with asymmetric Pt and AlO x interfaces produces an effective transverse magnetic field of 1 T per 10 8  A cm −2 . Besides its fundamental significance, the high efficiency of this process makes it a realistic candidate for room-temperature spintronic applications.