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Preeclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. Its diagnosis is based on clinical and paraclinical criteria, although in high-risk patients it can be difficult to identify at early stages. Angiogenic biomarkers, such as the sFlt-1/PlGF ratio, have emerged as highly useful complementary tools. We present the case of a 26-year-old pregnant woman with type 1 diabetes mellitus, who during the course of her pregnancy developed elevated blood pressure values and an increased sFlt-1/PlGF ratio, which guided the diagnosis of preeclampsia without severe features. Serial monitoring of biomarkers allowed close follow-up of disease progression and anticipation of its transition to severe preeclampsia, which prompted termination of pregnancy by cesarean section with favorable neonatal outcomes. The sFlt-1/PlGF ratio is a valuable diagnostic and prognostic tool in preeclampsia, especially in high-risk pregnancies.

This collection brings together six research articles that illuminate the molecular and cellular mechanisms shaping microbial communities, host–pathogen interactions, and fundamental cell biology. It covers the application of single-cell transcriptomics to uncover functional diversity within microbiomes, the engineering of controllable gut bacteria for therapeutic colonization, and the design of AI-guided proteins that block iron acquisition by pathogenic E. coli. Additional studies explore a universal homeostatic mechanism governing transcription factor activity, the metabolic roles of the anti-apoptotic protein MCL-1 beyond cell death regulation, and the unexpected capacity of platelets to sequester circulating cell-free DNA with implications for cancer diagnostics and prenatal testing. Together, these findings advance understanding of gene regulation, microbial ecology, and translational biotechnology.

This editorial curation brings together six timely articles examining how artificial intelligence is reshaping policy, security, privacy, and public trust. It moves from biosecurity risks created by generative protein design to the urgent need for science- and evidence-based AI governance. It also highlights the fragility of consumer genetic privacy, showing how weak legal protections can leave highly sensitive data vulnerable to misuse. At the same time, the collection explores how AI can distort knowledge production itself: from synthetic participants that may mislead social science research, to the hidden use of AI in scientific writing and peer review. Finally, it turns to AI-generated video and the erosion of visual credibility in public life. Together, these pieces reflect JOSHA’s commitment to curating debates that connect technological innovation with societal responsibility.

This edition of the Spotlights brings together six curated reads mapping how computation and policy are reshaping medicine: from the pixel to the population. MetaSeg shows how meta-learned implicit neural representations can segment 2D/3D MRI with U-Net–level accuracy using ~90% fewer parameters, pointing to lighter models for routine 3D analysis. In parallel, AI protein-design pipelines promise rapid iteration, generating biomolecules with potential antimicrobial and anticancer applications while lowering barriers through tool sharing. At the immune interface, mRNA-encoded nanoparticle vaccination activates and matures HIV broadly neutralizing antibody precursors in humans, advancing germline-targeting vaccine strategy. Beyond the bench, the collection also probes the systems that determine whether innovation reaches patients—how corporatization reshapes care, how funding shocks can stall research momentum, and why prevention may hinge on clonal competition and inflammation control.

Dear josha-journal readers, we welcome all readers to a new issue. JOSHA operates on four key principles: open access, ensuring all articles are freely available to readers worldwide; interdisciplinarity, welcoming submissions from all scientific, artistic, and humanistic disciplines; author copyright retention, allowing authors to keep the rights to their work; and editorial review instead of peer review, where articles are assessed for clarity, relevance, and originality, with the final judgment left to the readers themselves.

This Spotlight follows AI as it shifts from a helpful assistant to a system that can produce, judge, and propagate ideas at scale and shows what that change is doing to science, society, and safety. It opens with an “agent-run” conference where AI systems generate papers and other AI systems review them, turning peer review into a real-world stress test for multi-agent research and its blind spots. From there, it tracks how chatbots have become political flashpoints, with competing demands for “neutral” AI colliding with messy technical realities and free-speech concerns. The collection then zooms out to the material backbone of the boom, data centers, electricity, connectivity, and the growing compute divide between regions trying to compete and those being priced out.

How do systems quietly exhaust the people meant to sustain them? In this JOSHA Spotlight, five pieces map the hidden workload behind healthcare, higher education, and research. It traces antifungal drug resistance from environment to clinic, where agricultural azole use can select resistant fungi and further narrow an already limited treatment toolkit, strengthening the case for coordinated One Health surveillance and regulation across borders. It then turns to primary care, where “nonclinical” demands, prior authorizations, mandated forms, and electronic health record inbox labor, consume time meant for patients and accelerate burnout. Beyond medicine, it highlights student precarity in Germany: merit scholarships can total up to €1,155 per month, yet may interact with BAföG rules and eligibility.

Across politics, technology, and personal relationships, today’s “identity debates” are, at their core, contests over who shapes discourse. This Spotlight brings together six German-language essays and interviews from newspapers exploring how the mechanisms of truth and belief are evolving: from Enlightenment-era ideas of intelligence to algorithmic text production; from changing patterns of male friendship to competing scripts of masculinity; from far-right “crisis of manhood” narratives to the quieter work of rethinking the categories we live by. Together, these pieces show how gender is never only “private” or “cultural,” but tightly linked to institutions, media ecosystems, and power. JOSHA’s editorial curation places these texts in dialogue to map a single question from multiple angles: what new forms of responsibility, literacy, and solidarity are needed when our old concepts of truth, masculinity, and even reality no longer hold?

This Spotlight series traces how physics-driven methods and engineering choices are reshaping what we can detect, build, and understand in living systems and how innovation is steered by society. Ultraweak photon emission imaging suggests a label-free window into vitality and stress responses across animals and plants. Ultrasound-enabled in vivo 3D printing extends fabrication beyond the limits of light, pointing toward on-demand implants formed beneath centimeter-thick tissues. In parallel, ribosome profiling and new screening strategies are revealing thousands of overlooked microproteins, expanding the functional map of genomes and opening fresh therapeutic and vaccine targets. An editorial on engineering impact underscores that lasting advances depend on clear problem framing, measurable improvement, and reproducible methods shared transparently.

Technological systems increasingly shape how people live, love, and relate—often revealing hidden social pressures and vulnerabilities. This Spotlight traces how digital and cultural infrastructures reorganize everyday life: a hyper-competitive housing market that pushes students toward self-marketing and extreme compromises; growing “app fatigue” that drives singles back toward face-to-face dating; and the continued appeal of biography as a distinctly human form that resists algorithmic speed and simplification. The collection also confronts technology’s darker edges, including evidence that addictive patterns of digital use (more than screen time alone) correlate with youth mental health risks, and the severe harms enabled by online coercion networks targeting children. Curated in JOSHA’s interdisciplinary spirit, these pieces invite readers to see technology not as a neutral backdrop, but as a force reshaping intimacy, opportunity, attention, and safety.