The survey was conducted between February and May 2026 among undergraduates in medicine, dentistry, nursing and applied medical sciences at five universities in Riyadh. Participants had a mean age of 21.78 ± 3.73 years; 352, or 77.1%, were female and 104, or 22.9%, were male. Medicine was the largest professional group, contributing 280 participants, followed by applied medical sciences with 100, nursing with 53 and dentistry with 23. Recruitment into the university groups was also uneven: University A supplied 201 respondents, University B 90, University C 74, University D 63 and University E 28. The final dataset contained no missing observations, and all 456 students were included in the analyses.

Researchers used a 32-item questionnaire adapted from a previously validated instrument for health workers. A panel of five specialists in oral medicine, oral pathology and dental public health reviewed the questions for relevance, clarity and cultural appropriateness in Saudi Arabia. The panel removed 22 of the original 54 items, including questions about alcohol use, betel-quid or areca-nut chewing and practices not routinely performed by Saudi healthcare students. The adapted questionnaire achieved a scale-level content validity index of 0.94. A pilot study with 40 students, excluded from the main analysis, produced an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.82, while internal consistency was 0.74 for awareness, 0.72 for attitudes and 0.77 for practice.

Because eight of the 12 knowledge questions allowed multiple answers, the researchers did not construct a conventional total knowledge score. Instead, they used two-step cluster analysis on 27 categorical variables covering risk factors, oral changes, lesion recognition and treatment-related responses. This method separated 195 students into a higher-knowledge cluster and 261 into a lower-knowledge cluster. The higher cluster was much more likely to identify leukoplakia, tobacco use and non-healing ulcers: 82.1% recognized leukoplakia, 94.4% identified tobacco use and 67.2% recognized non-healing ulcers. In the lower cluster, the corresponding proportions were 13.0%, 58.2% and 30.3%.

Dental students had substantially stronger results: 18 of 23, or 78.3%, fell into the higher-knowledge cluster, compared with 143 of 280 medical students, or 51.1%; 21 of 100 applied medical sciences students, or 21.0%; and 13 of 53 nursing students, or 24.5%. In multivariable binary logistic regression, dental students had 12.67 times the odds of belonging to the higher-knowledge cluster than applied medical sciences students, with a 95% confidence interval of 4.17 to 38.40 and p < 0.001. The wide interval signals considerable imprecision, however, and medical students also had higher odds than applied sciences students, at 3.77 with a 95% confidence interval of 2.19 to 6.49 and p < 0.001. Nursing did not differ significantly from applied sciences, and age was not a significant independent predictor.

Awareness also varied by professional stream, with a p-value of 0.006. Fifteen dental students, or 65.2%, were classified as having high awareness, compared with 29.3% of medical students, 32.0% of applied sciences students and 32.1% of nursing students. In regression analysis, however, the dental difference from applied sciences narrowly missed the conventional threshold for statistical significance, producing an odds ratio of 2.68, a 95% confidence interval of 0.99 to 7.23 and p = 0.052. Knowledge was more clearly associated with awareness: students in the higher-knowledge cluster had 2.07 times the odds of high awareness than those in the lower cluster, with a 95% confidence interval of 1.35 to 3.19 and p = 0.001.

Attitudes and reported practices showed parallel variation. Positive attitudes toward oral cancer examination, screening and education were recorded for 52.2% of dental students, 24.5% of nursing students, 17.0% of applied sciences students and 13.6% of medical students; the association with professional stream was significant at p < 0.001. Dental students also had 3.54 times the odds of a positive attitude than applied sciences students, with a 95% confidence interval of 1.23 to 10.17 and p = 0.019. University D had higher odds of a positive attitude than University E, although the study did not model possible within-university correlation fully. The knowledge cluster itself was not independently associated with positive attitude after adjustment, with an odds ratio of 1.66, a 95% confidence interval of 0.96 to 2.87 and p = 0.070.

Good clinical practice was reported by 65.2% of dental students, 26.4% of nursing students, 19.0% of applied sciences students and 16.4% of medical students. High awareness was associated with 3.53 times the odds of good practice, while a positive attitude was associated with 5.10 times the odds; both confidence intervals excluded 1 and both p-values were below 0.001. Dental students also had 4.40 times the odds of good practice compared with applied sciences students, with a 95% confidence interval of 1.44 to 13.43 and p = 0.009. Medical and nursing students did not differ significantly from applied sciences in the adjusted model. Notably, the higher-knowledge cluster itself was not independently associated with good practice, with p = 0.374, indicating that greater factual knowledge alone was not fully aligned with reported clinical behavior.

Knowledge did not differ significantly among the five universities, with p = 0.057. That borderline result should not be read as evidence that the institutions were equivalent, particularly because institutional sample sizes ranged from 28 to 201 and potential clustering within universities was not formally modeled. Differences in curriculum, academic stage, prior training and clinical exposure were also not measured, so the study cannot establish that professional discipline itself caused the observed variations. Its cross-sectional design, voluntary online convenience sampling and self-reported answers further limit causal interpretation and generalizability. Without a complete sampling frame or denominator of eligible students, the researchers could not calculate a reliable response rate or assess nonresponse bias. Selection of students with greater interest in oral health may also have produced more favorable results than those found in the wider Riyadh student population.

The results point toward interdisciplinary education that combines recognition of oral potentially malignant disorders with practical examination, counseling and referral training. Students across medicine, nursing and applied medical sciences may encounter oral lesions during routine care, yet the survey indicates that knowledge alone does not reliably predict favorable attitudes or practices. The authors therefore recommend clinically oriented oral cancer instruction, interprofessional collaboration and opportunities to apply knowledge in realistic settings. They also call for larger, representative multicenter studies using probability-based recruitment, balanced participation across professions and institutions, objective assessments of clinical performance and statistical methods that account for institutional clustering. Until such evidence is available, the dental advantage and the size of the broader educational gaps should be treated as preliminary rather than definitive.

Subject of Research: Knowledge and clinical readiness concerning oral potentially malignant disorders and oral cancer among health professional students in Riyadh

Article Title: Knowledge, awareness, attitudes and practice regarding oral potentially malignant disorders and oral cancer among health professional students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: a multicenter cross-sectional study

Article References: Khanagar, S. B., Alofi, A., Alzaaqi, L. A., Alsubaie, J. M., Alayed, D., Abothnin, S. M., Almuammar, A. A., Alfaifi, A., & Iyer, K. (2026). Knowledge, awareness, attitudes and practice regarding oral potentially malignant disorders and oral cancer among health professional students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: a multicenter cross-sectional study. Frontiers in Oral Health, 7, Article 1942387. https://doi.org/10.3389/froh.2026.1942387

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/froh.2026.1942387

Keywords: oral cancer, oral potentially malignant disorders, health professional education, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, dental students, medical students, early detection, cross-sectional study, Knowledge, awareness, attitudes

The review was based on a Scopus search conducted on 6 November 2025 using terms related to invasive species and acoustic monitoring while excluding the non-invasive term. The search returned 143 papers, from which the researchers screened 44 potentially relevant abstracts and assessed their full texts. They retained 26 studies that directly examined passive acoustic monitoring of invasive animals.

The earliest study in the retained dataset was published in 2012, and the number of publications increased in more recent years. Amphibians accounted for 11 studies, birds and fish for five each, arthropods for three, and mammals and reptiles for one each. Research was concentrated in the USA and Australia, with fewer studies from Europe, Asia and South America and none identified from Africa. The geographic pattern partly reflected repeated studies of cane toads in Australia and barred owls in the USA.

The literature showed that acoustic monitoring was moving from exploratory sound characterization toward automated detection, machine learning, long-term monitoring and large-scale networks. Automated or semi-automated detection appeared in 17 of the 26 studies, and manual or expert validation was reported in 18, with four more using behavioural, experimental, laboratory or methodological validation. In amphibian studies, distinctive and relatively stereotyped mating calls supported automated identification. Other examples included deep-learning classifiers for cane toads, real-time monitoring of barred owls, acoustic classification of invasive fish and a model developed from 3,500 field-recorded common brushtail possum vocalizations in New Zealand.

For the case study, the researchers deployed 20 AudioMoth recorders at 11 water bodies in the Upper Rhine region. The devices were placed less than five metres from shorelines and programmed to record for 55 seconds every minute from two hours before sunset until three hours after sunset at a sampling frequency of 48 kHz. Simultaneous recordings covered 16 days from 13 to 29 June 2025, corresponding with the regional peak of bullfrog vocal activity and breeding season. Visual shoreline surveys were also conducted where possible, and all available iNaturalist records in the study region were compiled.

The 1,600 recorded hours were analysed with BirdNET Analyzer V2.4, which produced 56,298 three-second snippets identified as containing bullfrog calls. The researchers randomly selected 500 segments spanning confidence scores from 0.25 to 1.00 and assessed spectrograms and audio. Of these, 485 were judged correct and 15 incorrect. Logistic regression estimated that identifications with confidence scores above 0.703 had a 99% probability of being correct, with a 95% confidence interval for the threshold of 0.602 to 0.932.

Applying a multi-step classification process, the study classified 10 of the 20 recorders as having detected bullfrogs and thereby confirmed presence at five of the 11 monitored lakes. Recorders with more than 100 detections above the threshold were classified directly. For lower counts, the researchers examined the 15 highest-scoring detections; these were classified as positive if all exceeded the upper limit of the confidence interval, while uncertain cases were checked manually by listening to the audio. Tadpoles were observed at five sites, which were also the only sites with available citizen-science bullfrog records in the region.

Two lakes with confirmed bullfrog presence were within one kilometre of the protected nature reserves Altrhein Kleiner Bodensee and Altrhein-Königsee. The case study nevertheless has bounded scope: it covered one 16-day recording period, 11 lakes and two confirmed presence locations, and failure to confirm calls at the other lakes did not establish that bullfrogs were absent. Detection also depended on animals vocalizing during the deployment period. Across the broader literature, suitability varied among taxa, with acoustic monitoring most applicable to species producing frequent, distinctive and predictable sounds and less comprehensive for weakly vocal or non-vocal animals.

The authors concluded that passive acoustic monitoring has strong potential to support repeated and scalable invasive-species surveillance, particularly when automated identification is paired with transparent validation, defined thresholds, manual checks and integration with visual surveys and citizen science. It can help confirm persistence at known sites, identify likely breeding activity through repeated mating calls and prioritize follow-up in areas with limited resources. The review did not establish a uniform detection rate across species or environments, and the case study demonstrates feasibility rather than a comprehensive estimate of monitoring accuracy across all invasive animals.

Subject of Research: Evaluation of passive acoustic monitoring for detecting invasive animal species through literature synthesis and an American bullfrog field case study.

Article Title: Passive acoustic monitoring as a tool for early detection of invasive animal species: a systematic review and a case study

Article References: Becker, D., Kasten, M. K., Weber, T., Grass, I., & Hiller, T. (2026). Passive acoustic monitoring as a tool for early detection of invasive animal species: a systematic review and a case study. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 198(9), Article 1003. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-026-15873-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10661-026-15873-2

Keywords: passive acoustic monitoring, invasive species, American bullfrog, automated species detection, BirdNET, AudioMoth, systematic review, early detection, biodiversity monitoring, Passive, acoustic, monitoring

Ovarian cancer accounted for 324,398 new cases and 206,839 deaths globally in GLOBOCAN 2022, a mortality burden disproportionately high relative to incidence. Outcomes are more favorable when disease is detected early, but large screening efforts combining CA125 and transvaginal ultrasonography have not demonstrated sufficient survival benefit to support population screening. CA125 also has limited sensitivity in early-stage disease and can be elevated in benign and non-ovarian malignant conditions. Modelling cited by the review indicates that an early-stage screening test would need sensitivity above 75% and specificity of at least 99.6% to achieve a positive predictive value of 10% or greater.

DNA methylation offers a possible signal because aberrant methylation may arise early in tumourigenesis and can be measured in circulating cell-free DNA. However, plasma cell-free DNA contains material from many tissues, and only a fraction may be tumour-derived. Delays in blood processing can increase contamination with high-molecular-weight DNA, while methylation conversion, extraction and threshold selection can further affect measured signal. These issues are particularly consequential when early tumours release relatively few tumour-derived molecules.

Single-gene studies produced variable results. RASSF1A sensitivities of 25.4%, 37.7% and 85.7% were reported across three blood-based studies. OPCML showed the strongest overall performance among commonly assessed single-gene markers, with reported sensitivities of approximately 80.0% to 97.8%, but it has not been reproduced in large independent prospective cohorts. In a North Indian case-control study, serum HOXA9 and HIC1 methylation had sensitivities of 62.2% and 71.1%, respectively, at 100% specificity, although the stage I–II subset contained only 10 patients and controls were healthy rather than women with benign pelvic disease.

Multi-gene panels often improved discrimination within their source cohorts. A HOXA9–HIC1 combination tested in 45 epithelial ovarian cancer cases and 25 healthy controls achieved 88.9% sensitivity, 100% specificity and an area under the curve of 0.95, and was positive in all 10 stage I–II serum cases. Separately, an 11-marker random-forest model achieved 79% sensitivity at 96% specificity in 91 ovarian cancer cases and 91 controls and identified all five stage I–II high-grade serous cancers included in its plasma cohort. These small early-stage denominators and retrospective case-control designs do not establish screening performance.

Pre-diagnostic testing exposed a substantial gap between diagnostic discrimination and early detection. The three-region WID-cfOC score achieved 97.6% specificity and 66.7% sensitivity across 27 cancer cases in a diagnostic cohort that included women with benign pelvic pathology. Applied to prediagnostic samples from 29 women who subsequently developed ovarian cancer and 29 risk-matched controls, however, sensitivity was 27.3% for high-risk cancers with relatively lower genomic-DNA contamination and 33.3% in samples collected within one year of diagnosis, despite 100% specificity. Neither methylation nor CA125 detected stage I cancers in the diagnostic cohort, and combining the tests did not improve sensitivity beyond CA125 alone in the pre-diagnostic subset.

Machine-learning classifiers produced encouraging but threshold-dependent results. A transformer-based MethylBERT model evaluated 493 cfDNA methylation markers in 754 ovarian cancer cases, including 205 early-stage cases, and 1,118 healthy women. In its held-out internal validation set, the model achieved 89.24% sensitivity at 94.39% specificity and 79.45% sensitivity among 73 early-stage cases. Raising specificity from about 95% to 99.2% reduced early-stage sensitivity to 63.01%. Combining the classifier with CA125 increased early-stage sensitivity from 82.51% to 89.62% but reduced specificity from 97.36% to 93.55%, illustrating the trade-off between sensitivity and false-positive classification.

Validation quality remains a central limitation. A tissue-based high-grade serous classifier developed with more than 850,000 probes achieved an area under the curve of 0.84 (95% CI 0.76–0.93) in external validation after reduction to nine probes, compared with 0.98 for a much larger model. Its tissue samples, predominantly advanced-stage disease and a largely homogeneous population limit extrapolation to blood-based early detection. Across the wider literature, retrospective case-control designs, small FIGO stage I–II subsets, predominance of serous disease and healthy-control groups limit generalisability. Histotype-specific MethylBERT estimates also rested on only 43 serous, 11 endometrioid, eight mucinous and six clear-cell early-stage cases.

Assay chemistry and pre-analytical procedures add further uncertainty. Targeted PCR methods are comparatively practical for predefined loci, but bisulfite conversion can cause DNA fragmentation and loss, with reported recovery rates ranging from approximately 22% to 66% across conversion kits. Enzymatic and enrichment methods can reduce some conversion losses and work with low DNA input, but they have not established ovarian cancer screening performance. In 29 reviewed blood-based studies, only six reported the interval between collection and processing, only four used double centrifugation, and only 11 used extraction kits designed specifically for cell-free DNA. The review’s bounded conclusion is that methylation assays remain promising research components rather than clinically validated population-screening tests.

Subject of Research: Evaluation of DNA methylation biomarkers for early detection of ovarian cancer

Article Title: DNA methylation biomarkers for early detection of ovarian cancer

Article References: Leow, J. Y.-S., Ng, N. C.-S., Wong, R. S.-Y., Ming, L. C., Yap, T. L., & Goh, B. H. (2026). DNA methylation biomarkers for early detection of ovarian cancer. Molecular Biology Reports, 53(1), Article 1562. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-026-12750-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11033-026-12750-6

Keywords: ovarian cancer, DNA methylation, cell-free DNA, early detection, liquid biopsy, biomarkers, machine learning, CA125, diagnostic accuracy, methylation, early, detection

The researchers analyzed abdominal CT scans from 1,825 patients with PDAC and 3,650 matched controls from Mayo Clinic sites in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota. They used an artificial intelligence-based body-composition tool to measure changes in skeletal muscle, subcutaneous fat and visceral fat over time. By comparing longitudinal measurements between patients who developed pancreatic cancer and similar individuals without cancer, the investigators assessed whether the timing and rate of body-composition changes differed before diagnosis. The study is observational, so it shows an association between prediagnostic changes and subsequent PDAC rather than proving that those changes cause the disease or that CT-based measurements can screen for it.

The strongest observed difference was a significantly steeper decline in both subcutaneous and visceral fat during the three years before PDAC diagnosis among patients who developed the disease. Muscle differences were less apparent over the full period but became most pronounced in the year immediately preceding diagnosis. When the researchers evaluated whether the muscle and fat measurements could distinguish patients who later developed pancreatic cancer from matched controls, the measures demonstrated moderate discriminatory ability. This supports their potential to provide additional information in future risk-assessment strategies, but the study did not establish a complete clinical prediction model, evaluate a prospective screening program or demonstrate improved patient outcomes.

The results may be relevant to efforts to identify pancreatic cancer earlier because PDAC can develop silently and is often diagnosed after it has spread. Current surveillance programs focus primarily on people with inherited genetic risk or strong family histories, while most pancreatic cancers occur outside those high-risk groups. The Mayo Clinic analysis is, to the researchers’ knowledge, the largest controlled study to examine prediagnostic body-composition trajectories in patients who later developed pancreatic cancer and one of the first to assess whether those trajectories can help distinguish future cases from controls. Mayo researchers are now developing algorithms that combine body-composition measurements with other routinely collected clinical factors and imaging biomarkers to identify patients at increased risk.

Subject of Research: Prediagnostic CT body-composition trajectories associated with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Article Title: Body composition changes on CT scans may help identify pancreatic cancer risk

Article References: Body composition changes on CT scans may help identify pancreatic cancer risk. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: pancreatic cancer, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, body composition, CT scans, visceral fat, subcutaneous fat, skeletal muscle, artificial intelligence, early detection, Mayo Clinic, Body, composition

The descriptive cohort used records from the Cancer Registry of the Central Region to identify all breast cancer cases among Monastir residents, regardless of where diagnosis or treatment occurred. Eligible cases were diagnosed between January 2002 and December 2014 and were followed through the Monastir all-cause mortality database until January 2022. Benign and in situ tumors, recurrences, relapses and cases of metastatic progression were excluded.

Kaplan–Meier methods were used to estimate median survival and three-, five- and ten-year survival. Multivariable Cox regression examined baseline characteristics associated with mortality, while joinpoint regression assessed temporal trends in survival. Disease burden was expressed in disability-adjusted life years, or DALYs, calculated as years of life lost plus years lived with disability.

Median survival for the women included in the survival analysis was 187 months, with a 95% confidence interval of 163.7 to 210.2 months. Three-year survival was 77.0% (95% CI, 76.0%–78.0%), five-year survival was 70.0% (95% CI, 69.0%–71.0%), and ten-year survival was 45.2% (95% CI, 43.2%–47.2%). Median survival reached 226 months among women diagnosed at stages 0–I, compared with lower survival as stage increased.

Stage distribution differed by age. Overall, 21.4% of the 1,075 cases were diagnosed at stage IV, including 18.8% of women aged 30–64 and 33.3% of those older than 64. Stage was missing for 74 patients, or 6.9%, and the investigators reported no significant differences between women with complete and missing stage data across the baseline characteristics examined. Ten-year survival was 53.6% for stage 0–I disease and 25.9% for stage IV disease.

Ten-year relative survival increased significantly among women aged 30–64, the age group targeted by Tunisia’s national breast cancer early-detection program. The estimated annual percentage change was 5.37% (95% CI, 2.03%–8.82%; p=0.005), while three- and five-year relative survival remained stable over time. Because the cohort was observational and did not measure program exposure, treatment or other potential confounders, the trend is an association and cannot establish that the program caused the improvement.

The study estimated that diagnosis at stages 0–II rather than stages III–IV was associated with a relative risk of 0.78 for death over 10 years (95% CI, 0.67–0.91; p=0.001), corresponding to a 22% relative risk reduction. The reported number needed to diagnose was nine for preventing one additional death over the 10-year follow-up. For disease burden, the analysis estimated that diagnosing 61 women at stages 0–II rather than stages III–IV would avoid one DALY.

In the main results, the female cohort accounted for 11,800.5 DALYs, comprising 10,362 years of life lost and 1,438.5 years lived with disability; the reported median was 2.7 years (IQR, 1.8–23.0). The abstract listed a different total of 10,665.4 DALYs and a median of 28.0 years, creating an internal numerical discrepancy that is not explained in the supplied article text. A separate male analysis covered 43 patients, of whom 18 died during follow-up, and estimated 241.2 DALYs, including 230 years of life lost and 74.6 years lived with disability.

Several limitations constrain interpretation. Vital status was unavailable for 116 of the 1,075 women, with missingness more common among cases diagnosed in 2002–2004 than in 2011–2014, although baseline comparisons did not identify significant differences between women with complete and missing follow-up data. Registry sources lacked treatment, molecular subtype, comorbidity, recurrence and progression information, preventing evaluation of whether differences in care contributed to the observed survival patterns. Disability weights were taken from a Chinese population and assumed to remain constant despite changes in disease status, so DALY estimates, particularly years lived with disability, require caution. Results from the Monastir governorate also may not generalize to other parts of Tunisia.

Subject of Research: Long-term breast cancer survival and disease burden in Monastir, Tunisia

Article Title: Survival and disease burden of breast cancer (Monastir, Tunisia): A population-based cohort study (2002–2022)

Article References: Zemni, I., Maatouk, A., Boufrikha, W., Bennasrallah, C., Dhouib, W., Kacem, M., Abroug, H., Ben Fredj, M., Bouanene, I., Jridi, I., Arfa, H., Ben Salem, A., Njim, L., Zaied, S., Faleh, R., Sakka, K., Sriha, B., Jaîdane, L., Mehdi, M., & Belguith Sriha, A. (2026). Survival and disease burden of breast cancer (Monastir, Tunisia): A population-based cohort study (2002–2022). PLOS One, 21(10), e0360398. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0360398

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0360398

Keywords: breast cancer, population-based cohort, cancer survival, stage at diagnosis, Tunisia, Monastir, ten-year mortality, disability-adjusted life years, early detection, cancer registry, Survival, disease

Performance in the training set was strong: the area under the curve was 0.92, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.86–0.96, while sensitivity reached 87.3% at 85.7% specificity. The independent validation set yielded an area under the curve of 0.95, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.91–0.97. At the fixed cutoff, sensitivity was 93.2% and specificity was 85%.

The investigators also performed internal validation through bootstrapping and Monte Carlo cross-validation, reporting that the assay’s discriminatory power remained robust under statistical resampling. These subgroup observations were derived from the retrospective study population, and the supplied results do not provide separate performance estimates for each subgroup. The study therefore supports the feasibility of BF-09 as a candidate blood-based marker, but it does not establish performance in a prospective screening population or show that use of the assay improves clinical outcomes.

Mammography is the standard-of-care screening method for breast cancer, although the paper identifies tissue density and overdiagnosis of benign conditions among its limitations and notes growing interest in alternative blood-based tests. Against that background, the findings offer preliminary support for BF-09 as a possible alternative screening assay rather than a validated replacement for established screening. Additional prospective evaluation would be needed to determine how the test performs when used in the intended screening setting.

The authors characterized BF-09 as having high potential as an alternative breast cancer screening test, based on the reported retrospective diagnostic performance and internal statistical validation.

Subject of Research: Retrospective evaluation of serum BF-09 for breast cancer detection.

Article Title: Diagnostic potential of serum BF-09 biomarker (protein SGF29) for early detection of breast cancer: high performance for early-stage cancer and major histological or molecular subtypes

Article References: Chavany, C., Dea, J., Valle, R. P. C., González, R. H., & Jendoubi, M. (2026). Diagnostic potential of serum BF-09 biomarker (protein SGF29) for early detection of breast cancer: high performance for early-stage cancer and major histological or molecular subtypes. Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-026-06634-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s00432-026-06634-2

Keywords: breast cancer, BF-09, SGF29, blood biomarker, ELISA, diagnostic accuracy, cancer screening, retrospective study, early detection, mammography, Diagnostic, potential

The Arctic has historically offered natural barriers to alien plant establishment, including short growing seasons, severe weather, limited human activity and relatively undisturbed soils. Those barriers are weakening as climate warming, infrastructure construction, resource extraction and increasingly connected transport networks alter terrestrial habitats. Disturbed ground can expose mineral surfaces, accelerate soil development and change microbial and chemical conditions, while settlements, ports, research stations and other hubs concentrate seeds and other propagules. An earlier Arctic inventory recorded 341 alien plant taxa, of which 188 had naturalized in at least one floristic province and 11 were classified as invasive. The new study focuses on potentially novel arrivals rather than further range expansion by plants already present, providing a prioritized set for pathways, impact and establishment assessments.

The researchers began with the Global Naturalized Alien Flora database and removed taxa native to the Arctic or already included in the Arctic alien flora inventory. Scientific names were harmonized through World Flora Online, with 120 unresolved names examined manually against taxonomic authorities; 27 invalid or unpublished names were discarded. Candidate names were matched to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility backbone, allowing records filed under accepted names and synonyms to be retrieved. The download produced 51,566,131 occurrences for 11,534 taxa from 1970 to 2024. Coordinates were cleaned, invalid and duplicate locations removed, and records thinned to one random point per 1-by-1-kilometre cell to reduce spatial autocorrelation. Taxa with fewer than 55 usable occurrences were excluded because their climatic niches could not be represented reliably in the four-dimensional model.

Climate space was defined using 19 bioclimatic variables, from which the researchers selected precipitation of the warmest quarter, mean temperature of the warmest quarter, isothermality and temperature seasonality. These variables represented growing-season water availability, limits on photosynthetic and reproductive activity, temperature stability and seasonal stress. Each plant’s global climate niche was constructed as a hypervolume using the box method and kernel density estimation. Inclusion tests determined whether a taxon’s observed climate points overlapped the Arctic climate space, after which geographic projections estimated where suitable conditions might occur. A probability analysis assigned a suitability density to each 1-by-1-kilometre Arctic cell, while a binary projection mapped potentially suitable area regardless of probability. As a validation exercise, the same process recovered climatic overlap for 1,061 of 1,157 known Arctic taxa that met the analysis criteria, a success rate of 91.7%.

The spatial projections reveal sharply unequal potential across the Arctic. Western Alaska contained the highest modelled richness, reaching 1,273 potential alien species per grid cell, compared with 248 across the northern Alaska–Yukon Territory. Southwestern Greenland ranked next with 1,055 species, followed by southeastern Greenland with 720. Northern Iceland and Kanin–Pechora each reached 622, while Fennoscandia contained up to 336. These are estimates of climatic opportunity rather than observed plant occurrences. Farther north, the models identified 45 possible alien species in Svalbard, 46 in Jan Mayen, six in Franz Joseph Land and seven on Wrangel Island. The concentration of candidates in warmer southern and western areas indicates that the lower-Arctic provinces currently offer more combinations of temperature and precipitation known to occur within the global ranges of alien plants.

Five plants stood out for the broadest projected climatic suitability. Arnica angustifolia could encounter suitable conditions across 95% of the terrestrial Arctic, followed by Koeleria spicata at 94%, Micranthes nelsoniana at 93%, Alnus alnobetula at 84% and Senecio nemorensis at 62%. Those rankings require careful interpretation. The first four belong to taxonomic complexes containing subspecies or varieties already recorded in the Arctic, so their high scores do not necessarily represent wholly novel species-level arrivals. Senecio nemorensis, by contrast, had no occurrence points in the Arctic within the filtered dataset. It is native to central Europe and Asia and is naturalized in several European countries. Nevertheless, climatic compatibility cannot establish whether a plant can reproduce, disperse, compete or spread after introduction.

Taxonomic comparisons showed that the candidate flora in most Arctic floristic provinces did not differ significantly from the global alien-plant baseline after false-discovery-rate correction. Franz Joseph Land was the exception, with a large compositional deviation driven mainly by an overrepresentation of Asterales, which represented 33.3% of its candidate taxa compared with 11.8% globally. Fabales, accounting for 9.4% of the global pool, was absent there. Wrangel Island had the next-largest effect, including elevated proportions of Asterales and Poales and no Fabales, but its adjusted p-value of 0.069 did not meet the study’s significance threshold. The scarcity of Fabales in high-Arctic islands and other provinces appears to reflect the order’s naturally limited Arctic distribution rather than a climatic barrier identified by the model.

Potential source regions extended across nearly all climate zones, with Germany, France, Sweden and Austria among the largest European contributors and Ontario, Colorado, New York and California prominent in North America. Kazakhstan, southeastern China and northeastern Argentina also supplied numerous candidates. The geographic spread underscores the role of global trade and transportation in Arctic introductions, but it does not establish that plants from every listed country are likely to travel to the Arctic. A separate statistical analysis showed that climate overlap increased with a taxon’s absolute median latitude. Higher-latitude distributions were associated with both a lower probability of zero overlap and a larger overlap when overlap occurred. The model estimated that the probability of any Arctic niche overlap approached 100% above 60 degrees, supporting the hypothesis that plants already occupying cold boreal or austral environments have a climatic advantage.

p>These results point to a practical need for geographically broad, early biosecurity rather than reliance on one dominant pathway. Historically important routes in Arctic alien plants include escape from confinement, transport stowaways, seed contaminants and vehicle transport, while 43% of introductions in a previous pathway analysis remained unknown. Ports, airports, research stations, settlements, tourist routes and soil or plant-material imports connect distant regions with the projected hotspots. Priority monitoring in western Alaska, southern Greenland, northern Iceland, northern Fennoscandia and Kanin–Pechora could complement targeted inspection of major entry points. Public participation may extend surveillance across sparsely populated territories, allowing managers to find localized introductions while they remain small. Yet the model cannot rank risks by ecological damage or identify the propagule pressure and disturbance conditions needed for establishment.

p>The analysis has clear limitations. It estimates climatic overlap under a 1970–2000 climate baseline rather than forecasting invasion outcomes under future warming, and it does not model propagule supply, dispersal, reproduction, competition or interactions with resident biodiversity. GBIF records can contain geographic and sampling bias, as illustrated by an erroneous Antarctic record that entered the workflow before being detected. Taxonomic harmonization also required precautionary decisions about subspecies, varieties and aggregates, meaning some nominally novel candidates may be close relatives of plants already in the Arctic. The researchers recommend adding climate scenarios, environmental variables, plant traits and weighted resampling methods in future assessments. Even with those limitations, the 2,554-taxon list offers a scalable screening tool: it cannot prove establishment, but it can direct limited surveillance and expert resources toward the taxa and Arctic locations where climatic preconditions are strongest.

Subject of Research: Climatic horizon scanning of potential new alien vascular plants across the terrestrial Arctic

Article Title: Horizon scanning of potential new alien vascular plant species and their climatic niche space across the Arctic

Article References: Ulsted, T. H., Westergaard, K. B., Dawson, W., & Speed, J. D. M. (2025). Horizon scanning of potential new alien vascular plant species and their climatic niche space across the Arctic. NeoBiota, 104, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.104.165054

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/neobiota.104.165054

Keywords: Arctic, alien plants, biological invasions, climate change, horizon scanning, biosecurity, climatic niches, hypervolume modelling, floristic provinces, early detection, Horizon, scanning

The scale of breast cancer in the United States helps explain why clinical research investment remains so urgent. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women apart from skin cancers, accounting for roughly one in three new cancer diagnoses in women each year. The American Cancer Society projects about 320,000 new cases in 2026. While those numbers are sobering, they sit alongside one of the most encouraging long-term trends in all of oncology: breast cancer death rates have fallen steadily since 1989, declining by 44 percent through 2023. Researchers attribute that decline to a combination of earlier detection through screening mammography, growing public awareness, and successive waves of treatment advances, many of which were validated in large, practice-changing clinical trials.

Incidence, however, tells a more complicated story. Diagnosis rates have risen by about 1 percent annually in recent years, and the increase has been somewhat steeper among women younger than 50, at roughly 1.4 percent per year. That trend has intensified scientific interest in why younger women are being diagnosed more often, and it underscores the importance of trials that address the unique needs of different patient populations, from young adults facing hereditary risk to long-term survivors managing the late effects of treatment. Today, approximately 4 million people in the United States are living as breast cancer survivors, a population whose health needs extend well beyond the end of active therapy.

The infrastructure behind much of this progress is less visible to the public than any single drug approval. The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, a member of the National Cancer Institute’s National Clinical Trials Network, unites more than 26,000 cancer specialists at 112 main institutions and 1,400 affiliated sites across the United States and Canada. More than 40,000 participants have enrolled in Alliance studies over the years, and the organization’s biospecimen repository now holds more than 1.5 million samples collected across three decades. That repository is a scientific resource in its own right, allowing researchers to ask questions about tumor biology, treatment response, and long-term outcomes that were never anticipated when the original trials were designed.

Currently, the Alliance and its partner organization Alliance Foundation Trials have eight active breast cancer trials open to patients and survivors. Together they illustrate the breadth of modern breast cancer research, which spans not only drug development but also de-escalation of therapy, survivorship care, prevention, and early detection. Several of these trials reflect a growing recognition that sometimes the most patient-centered question is not which new drug to add, but whether existing treatment can safely be shortened or reduced.

One example is a phase III study known as OptimICE-PCR, led by Sara Tolaney of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. It focuses on patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive subtype that lacks the three receptors most commonly targeted by therapy. Many of these patients now receive chemotherapy combined with pembrolizumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor, before surgery, and those who achieve a pathologic complete response, meaning no residual invasive cancer is found at the time of surgery, currently continue pembrolizumab for up to 27 weeks afterward. The trial asks whether observation alone can match that standard in preventing recurrence, potentially sparing responders months of immunotherapy and its associated side effects and costs.

A parallel de-escalation question is being asked in HER2-positive disease. ShortStop-HER2, led by Adrienne Waks of Dana-Farber, enrolls patients whose tumors respond completely to chemotherapy paired with HER2-targeted antibodies before surgery. The standard adjuvant course of HER2-directed therapy has long been 12 months, but prolonged antibody treatment can cause side effects, and some patients struggle to complete the full year. The trial compares six months of HER2-targeted therapy with the conventional 12-month course to determine whether the shorter duration preserves effectiveness while lightening the burden of care. Studies like these reflect a broader movement in oncology toward individualizing treatment intensity, intensifying therapy for those at highest risk and reducing it for those who may not need it.

Not all trials aim to subtract treatment; some aim to target it more precisely. AFT-70 NAVIGATE, co-led by Komal Jhaveri of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Gaorav Gupta of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, tests a molecular residual disease-guided strategy in intermediate- and high-risk ER-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer. Patients receive giredestrant, an investigational next-generation oral selective estrogen receptor degrader, while undergoing ongoing Signatera molecular residual disease monitoring, a blood-based test that looks for traces of tumor DNA. If molecular evidence of residual cancer appears, patients may be intensified with a CDK4/6 inhibitor. The goal is to reserve prolonged combination therapy for patients whose biology suggests they need it, rather than exposing everyone to it by default. This approach exemplifies how liquid biopsy technology is reshaping adjuvant treatment design.

Survivorship research occupies another important corner of the portfolio. The Revitalize trial, led by Maryam Lustberg of Yale University Comprehensive Cancer Center, evaluates fractional CO2 laser therapy for vaginal atrophy in breast cancer survivors. Vaginal dryness is a common consequence of menopause, but it is frequently induced or worsened by breast cancer treatments, particularly endocrine therapies such as tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors. Because hormone-based remedies are often avoided in breast cancer patients, nonhormonal options carry real clinical significance, and symptoms like these are a major reason survivors discontinue the endocrine therapy that protects them from recurrence.

Physical function is the focus of the DEFEND study, led by Kathryn Schmitz of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and Jennifer Ligibel of Dana-Farber. Chemotherapy can erode strength, endurance, and independence, and fatigue is among the most commonly reported and least adequately treated side effects of cancer care. DEFEND tests whether a structured exercise program delivered entirely through telehealth can help patients receiving chemotherapy maintain physical function, reduce fatigue, and prevent disability. If successful, the trial could expand access to exercise oncology services for patients who live far from specialized cancer centers or face transportation and scheduling barriers.

Prevention and early detection round out the research agenda. A trial led by Devon Noonan of Duke University School of Medicine tests a text-based smoking cessation program against a printed manual in rural cancer patients and survivors who smoke, including people with breast cancer. Continued smoking after a cancer diagnosis is associated with worse outcomes, yet rural populations face persistent barriers to cessation services, and a scheduled, gradual-reduction approach delivered by text message could reach people that traditional programs miss.

Another study, led by Marie Wood of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, addresses an emerging frontier in cancer screening: multicancer early detection blood tests. These tests, which aim to identify cancer signals in a single blood draw, are advancing rapidly, but evaluating them rigorously requires large, well-characterized reference sets of samples from people with and without cancer. By collecting and storing blood and tissue specimens from both groups, the study creates a blinded reference resource that can support the development and validation of tests intended to catch cancers, including breast cancer, at earlier and more treatable stages.

Genetic services are the subject of a trial led by Angela Bradbury of the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center. Genetic testing for inherited cancer syndromes is an established standard of care that can guide enhanced screening and risk-reduction strategies, yet many adolescents and young adults with cancer never receive recommended counseling and testing. The study compares a digital, chatbot-enabled delivery model with standard remote genetic services to determine whether the technology can increase uptake among this population while easing demands on genetic counselors and other health care staff. Because hereditary risk information has implications for patients’ relatives as well, improving access to these services can ripple outward through entire families.

Viewed together, these eight trials sketch the trajectory of the field. Treatment is becoming simultaneously more effective and more tailored, with immunotherapy de-escalation, shortened antibody courses, and molecular residual disease-guided intensification all under formal evaluation. Care is extending beyond the tumor to encompass sexual health, physical function, and behavioral risk factors. And the tools of early detection, from multicancer blood tests to digitally delivered genetic services, are being tested with the same rigor once reserved for drugs. The nearly 1,900 breast cancer publications the Alliance has produced from its studies testify to how much evidence this cooperative model has generated, and each new trial depends on the patients, families, and investigators willing to participate. Their contributions remain the foundation on which the next generation of breast cancer advances will be built.

Subject of Research: Breast cancer clinical trials advancing treatment, prevention, and early detection research

Article Title: Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Advancing breast cancer research through clinical trials

Article References: Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Advancing breast cancer research through clinical trials. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: breast cancer, clinical trials, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, triple-negative breast cancer, HER2-positive breast cancer, immunotherapy, early detection, cancer survivors, National Cancer Institute, pembrolizumab, genetic testing

The headline number, 75 deaths among 479 episodes, corresponds to an in-hospital mortality of 15.7 percent, with a 95 percent confidence interval of 12.7 to 19.2 percent. But the timing of those deaths may be the most consequential finding for anyone thinking about stroke systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly half of the deaths, 44.0 percent, occurred within the first 24 hours of admission. By day three, 58.7 percent of the eventual deaths had happened, and by day seven the figure reached 85.3 percent. Median length of stay was six days among survivors against three days among those who died, a difference the authors explicitly frame as a consequence of early mortality rather than a predictive exposure. When patients are dying this fast, the window in which hospital-based interventions could plausibly alter the trajectory is measured in hours, not days.

That compressed timeline mirrors what earlier Angolan studies have documented about how patients reach care. A cross-sectional study from another Luanda hospital reported a median onset-to-door time of 14 hours, with only 10.8 percent of patients arriving within three hours of symptom onset, well inside the 4.5-hour thrombolysis window. The multicentre INTERSTROKE Angola case-control study found that only 27.4 percent of stroke cases achieved a favourable Glasgow Outcome Scale score of 5 at discharge. Hospital do Prenda, which receives neurovascular referrals from surrounding municipalities but has no dedicated stroke unit and no dedicated neuro-intensive care unit, sits at the end of that delayed chain. When most patients arrive beyond the point where reperfusion therapy is possible and critical-care escalation capacity is limited, deaths concentrate in the first days of admission, exactly the pattern the registry reveals.

The statistical architecture of the study is careful to a degree that rewards attention. The researchers fitted three exploratory multivariable logistic regression models, adjusting for age, sex, admission year, stroke subtype, recorded comorbidities and head-CT status. With only 75 deaths distributed across multiple covariates, the events-per-variable ratio sat at roughly seven, and the Hosmer-Lemeshow test flagged poor calibration in the smaller complete-case models. The authors therefore present their adjusted estimates as exploratory associations rather than independent prognostic effects, a distinction that matters for how the findings should be used. In the model using age bands on the full cohort, which achieved a c-statistic of 0.649 and acceptable calibration, the gradient was pronounced: compared with the 45-to-54 reference band, the adjusted odds ratio for death was 2.97 for patients under 45, 2.90 for ages 55 to 64, 3.59 for ages 65 to 74, and 5.92 for those 75 and older.

The non-monotonic shape of that gradient, with mortality dipping in middle age and rising again in the youngest band, prompted a subgroup analysis that produced one of the study’s most intriguing signals. Among patients younger than 45, 22.2 percent of haemorrhagic stroke episodes ended in death, against 10.8 percent of ischaemic episodes. A likelihood-ratio test of the age-by-subtype interaction returned a p-value of 0.0009, suggesting the age pattern genuinely differs between the two major stroke mechanisms. The authors offer two non-exclusive explanations. Younger Angolan stroke patients may present with more severe syndromes, carrying a heavier haemorrhagic load and more malignant middle-cerebral-artery events, consistent with observations from the earlier Luanda cross-sectional study. Alternatively, the effect could be a small-denominator artefact, in which a handful of very early deaths in a modestly sized group inflates the proportion. The registry, lacking admission severity scores, cannot adjudicate between these readings.

Equally instructive is what the study did not find. Sex showed no association with mortality, with 15.7 percent among women and 15.2 percent among men. Stroke subtype overall, comparing haemorrhagic with ischaemic cases, returned a null result, with crude mortality of 14.5 percent versus 16.0 percent. Recorded hypertension and recorded diabetes were likewise unassociated with death. But the authors are emphatic that these nulls cannot be read as evidence of absence. The comorbidity data came from a single free-text line on the discharge summary, extracted using predefined string rules rather than natural language processing, and the field was non-empty in only 33.0 percent of episodes. Recorded hypertension reached just 19.8 percent of the cohort, against roughly 88 percent case prevalence measured by INTERSTROKE Angola. In other words, approximately four of five hypertensive patients in this catchment carry no recorded comorbidity in the registry, and such misclassification biases observed associations toward the null.

Two ascertainment-related signals reinforce that caution. Episodes with any comorbidity recorded had higher mortality than those without, 20.9 percent versus 13.1 percent, a pattern the authors interpret as the field being completed more often for patients who were more thoroughly investigated or more severely ill. Episodes without a head CT, 4.2 percent of the cohort, had double the mortality of those scanned, 30.0 percent versus 15.0 percent, consistent with imaging being withheld from the most severe or most rapidly deteriorating patients. Both mechanisms also help explain the surprising haemorrhagic-versus-ischaemic null: the unclassified category, with 24.0 percent mortality, almost certainly absorbs the most severe haemorrhagic cases who die before reaching CT, simultaneously raising the unclassified death rate and stripping the highest-mortality events out of the haemorrhagic denominator. What looks like biology in a crude table can, on inspection, be a story about documentation.

The transparency of the analysis is itself notable. The registry was assembled for clinical administration, not research, and captures only administrative fields, discharge diagnosis and a one-line comorbidity note. It does not record the NIH Stroke Scale, the Glasgow Coma Scale on admission, pre-stroke functional status on the modified Rankin Scale, admission glucose, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation or thrombolysis use. The authors treat these absences as explicit boundaries of inference, repeatedly stating that no variable’s independent prognostic effect can be estimated while holding admission severity and acute treatment constant. They also published the anonymised episode-level dataset and the complete Python analysis code as supplementary material, so that every figure and odds ratio in the paper can be independently reproduced, and they report the study against the STROBE checklist for observational research. A data-quality audit identified and explicitly handled one duplicate episode, two episodes with comorbidity text entered in the outcome field and three date anomalies, none of which changed the primary results.

Why should readers far from Luanda care? Because the prognostic scores most clinicians reach for, including iScore, PLAN and the Weimar NIHSS-derived model, were built on North American, European and Australasian cohorts whose case-mix and care pathways bear little resemblance to a hospital where patients arrive a median of 14 hours after onset, nearly half of strokes are haemorrhagic, and no stroke unit exists. The Global Burden of Disease 2019 study placed stroke at roughly 12 percent of all deaths worldwide, with most of the absolute increase since 1990 occurring in low- and middle-income countries, and forecasts expect the gap to widen through 2050. Studies like this one are the raw material for building locally valid prediction and, more importantly, for making the structural case that the authors close on: routine documentation of admission severity, structured coding of comorbidities and a national Angolan stroke registry harmonised with its sub-Saharan neighbours are overdue. Until then, age at the door, and the clock that started long before it, remain the strongest signals of who will not survive the admission.

Subject of Research: In-hospital mortality after stroke at a tertiary hospital in Angola

Article Title: Factors associated with in-hospital mortality after stroke at a tertiary hospital in Angola

Article References: Neto, S., Cuenda, B., Major, M. N., Kapele, J., & Pinto, C. (2026). Factors associated with in-hospital mortality after stroke at a tertiary hospital in Angola. Frontiers in Neurology, 17, Article 1944436. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2026.1944436

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2026.1944436

Keywords: stroke, in-hospital mortality, Angola, Luanda, sub-Saharan Africa, haemorrhagic stroke, ischaemic stroke, hypertension, registry study, retrospective cohort, thrombolysis window, prognostic factors

The cautionary tale concerns the polyphagous shot hole borer, an ambrosia beetle that farms a fungal symbiont inside the wood of its host trees. Together, the beetle and fungus cause dieback and mortality across a remarkably wide range of woody plants, from native species to commercially valuable crops. Retrospective analysis showed the beetle had been sampled in South Africa as early as 2012, when it was collected during a DNA barcoding project. Yet the first detection that triggered a response came only in 2017, from a field survey at the KwaZulu-Natal Botanical Gardens. By 2021 the beetle was known to occupy eight of South Africa’s nine provinces, attacking native, ornamental and economically important trees alike. Whether action in 2012 would have contained it is unknowable, but five years of silence between molecular detection and response is exactly the kind of failure the new workflow is built to prevent.

DNA barcoding, the technique underlying the approach, involves sequencing a standardised region of an organism’s genome and matching it against reference libraries. Because the method can identify species from damaged fragments, eggs, larvae or other life stages that lack diagnostic physical features, and because it can distinguish cryptic species that look identical, it has become a powerful surveillance tool. The Barcode of Life Data System, or BOLD, is the open-access repository where much of this sequence data lands. As of May 2025 it held 16.5 million public records representing 1.3 million species across animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and protists. Critically, however, BOLD records are not systematically screened against national lists of dangerous invaders, and the database does not indicate whether a species is native to the region where a specimen was collected. Molecular detections therefore accumulate without anyone asking whether they constitute a first report of a threat.

The workflow, implemented in the R programming language with freely available scripts, proceeds in three steps. First, input datasets are acquired, inspected and cleaned; for the BOLD export this meant retaining only records with actual DNA sequence data, removing duplicates and blank entries, and excluding a handful of mislabelled records. Second, species names are taxonomically standardised across datasets, a deceptively hard problem, since the same species may appear under synonyms, outdated names or outright misapplications in different lists. The researchers used BODATSA, the Botanical Database of Southern Africa, as the backbone for plant names and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility backbone for other taxa, with manual checks to resolve homonyms and ambiguous cases. Third, the standardised lists are compared in pairs, with BOLD always serving as the reference, so that any species appearing in the molecular data but absent from a national checklist is flagged for scrutiny.

Applied to South Africa, the comparison started from 10,084 species with DNA barcode records collected in the country, matched against three reference datasets: a watch list of 400 alien species considered high-risk but not known to be present; a quarantine pest list of 218 taxa intercepted on plant imports between 1994 and 2019 but not established; and BODATSA’s 67,105 plant species, which include alien plants found outside cultivation. The results were striking. Seven species overlapped between BOLD and the watch list, and after literature checks three were flagged for action: the southern house mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus, the woodland white worm Octolasion tyrtaeum, and the tropical almond tree Terminalia catappa. The first two are recognised threats apparently never before recorded as present in South Africa, meaning their BOLD records should be verified, their presence confirmed in the field, and an incursion response considered immediately.

The pest-list comparison produced two overlaps, of which one, the fruit fly Drosophila immigrans, turned out to be already known in the country. The other, the plaster beetle Cartodere constricta, was flagged as a potential new record; it has been introduced to six countries according to GBIF, though no environmental or economic impacts have been documented so far. Meanwhile, the comparison of BOLD plants against BODATSA revealed 323 species unique to the molecular database. After excluding algae, which BODATSA does not cover, native species missing from the checklist, and one data-deficient taxon, 131 confirmed alien plants remained, and nine were flagged as possible additions to the list of alien plants outside cultivation. These include Ficus microcarpa, Jacobaea maritima and Yucca gloriosa, several of which are confirmed invaders elsewhere. Some are currently known only from cultivation or offshore islands, and one lacks locality data entirely, but all warrant verification and, where confirmed, collection of physical specimens as evidence.

The study is equally instructive in what it did not flag. The myrtle rust fungus Austropuccinia psidii appeared in both BOLD and the watch list, but it was first detected in South Africa in 2013, after the watch list was compiled, so the match reflects an outdated list rather than a new arrival. Similarly, 54 BOLD records for the grey wolf Canis lupus all pertain to domestic dogs, exposing how taxonomic imprecision can generate false alarms. The authors stress that every flagged species is a candidate for expert scrutiny, not an automatic incursion: synonymy, misidentification and unresolved native-versus-alien status can all produce apparent mismatches. This is why the workflow embeds verification steps, from checking voucher specimens and collection coordinates to contacting the original authors, before any management response is triggered.

A further layer of caution concerns environmental DNA. Sequences recovered from soil or water can reveal a species’ genetic footprint without proving that living organisms are present, and contamination or incomplete reference libraries can yield false positives. Under international plant protection guidelines, taxa detected solely by molecular methods should not be declared present without biological confirmation, so eDNA hits must be followed up with isolation or field sampling. The authors also note that BOLD records are only as useful as their metadata: collection dates, precise localities and images dramatically improve the odds that a flagged record can be verified and traced. They recommend that databases routinely store species names with authorship and date information, since taxonomic homonyms cannot be resolved automatically without them, a limitation that accounted for a substantial share of the manual checks in this study.

The deeper message is institutional rather than technical. Even with clear evidence in hand, mobilising a rapid response is difficult; decision-makers and the public often demand visible, large-scale impacts before acting, by which point eradication options have narrowed. The authors therefore frame the workflow as a component of an integrated biosecurity system rather than a stand-alone fix. They recommend running it at least annually, since BOLD grows constantly with sequences from studies that were never aimed at biosecurity but often carry incidental value. In South Africa, they suggest housing curated lists in GBIF, building on SANBI’s existing reporting structures, and routing alerts to the environment department and border authorities so that molecular detections join interception records at points of entry. For other countries, the recipe starts with compiling national alien species lists and watch lists, an increasingly automated task, before the comparison machinery can be switched on. The value of the whole apparatus, the authors conclude, depends on the curation of the underlying lists, how regularly the workflow is applied, and whether institutions actually pick up the phone when a flag is raised. In biosecurity, as the shot hole borer demonstrated, the most expensive gap is not detection. It is everything that fails to happen afterwards.

Subject of Research: A workflow for converting molecular detections of alien species into biosecurity action

Article Title: From detection to action—a proposed workflow to ensure first reports of alien species from molecular analyses are acted upon

Article References: Fernández Winzer, L., Faulkner, K. T., Paap, T., & Wilson, J. R. U. (2025). From detection to action—a proposed workflow to ensure first reports of alien species from molecular analyses are acted upon. NeoBiota, 104, 339-359. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.104.162310

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/neobiota.104.162310

Keywords: biosecurity, invasive species, DNA barcoding, BOLD database, South Africa, polyphagous shot hole borer, early detection, environmental DNA, taxonomy, species lists, NeoBiota, incursion response