C. Carreau/ATG Medialab/ESA

An artists impression of the European Space Agencys Rosetta probe, which aims to be the first to land on a comet.

Several research groups, including a team led by geneticist Erika Sasaki and stem-cell biologist Hideyuki Okano at Keio University in Tokyo, hope to create transgenic primates with immune-system deficiencies or brain disorders. This could raise ethical concerns, but might bring us closer to therapies that are relevant to humans (mice can be poor models for such disorders). The work will probably make use of a gene-editing method called CRISPR, which saw rapid take-up last year.

The European Space Agencys Rosetta spacecraft could become the first mission to land a probe on a comet. If all goes well, it will land on comet ChuryumovGerasimenko in November. Mars will also be a busy place: Indias orbiter mission should arrive at the planet in September, about the same time as NASAs MAVEN probe. And NASAs Curiosity rover should finally make it to its mission goal, the slopes of the 5.5-kilometre-high Aeolis Mons, where it will look for evidence of water. Back on Earth, NASA hopes to launch an orbiter to monitor atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has developed a brain-controlled exoskeleton that he expects will enable a person with a spinal-cord injury to kick the first ball at the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil. Meanwhile, attempts are being made in people with paralysis to reconnect their brains directly to paralysed areas, rather than to robotic arms or exoskeletons. In basic research, neuroscientists are excited about money from big US and European brain initiatives, such as Europes Human Brain Project.

In the pharmaceutical industry, all eyes are on trial results from two competing antibody treatments that harness patients immune systems to fight cancer. The drugs, nivolumab and lambrolizumab, work by blocking proteins that prevent a persons Tcells from attacking tumours. In early tests, the drugs evoked a better level of response in patients than ipilimumab, a similar therapy that was launched in 2011 to treat advanced melanoma.

Semiconductors known as perovskites convert light energy into electricity. They are cheap to build and have already shown conversion rates of more than 15% (a leap from 4% when the feat was first reported in 2009). Expect to see still-higher efficiencies this year, perhaps reaching 20% the same as the lower end of existing commercial silicon-based photo-voltaics. A team at the University of Oxford, UK, also hopes to make lead-free perovskites.

In 2013, two research teams showed that broadly neutralizing antibodies that target an array of HIV types quickly cleared an HIV-related virus in monkeys. The therapy will be tested in people who carry HIV, with results expected in the autumn. Meanwhile, last years curing of a baby born with the virus might lead to wider trials of the technique used: high doses of antiretroviral drugs given at birth.

Technology that rapidly sequences DNA as it is fed through a ring of proteins, known as a biological nanopore, will hit the market this year after decades of development. Oxford Nano-pore Technologies in Oxford, UK, aims to release the first data from a disposable sequencer the size of a memory stick, which it is sending to scientists for testing. It promises to read longer strands of DNA than other techniques (potentially useful in sequencing mixed samples of bacterial DNA, for example), and to show results in real time.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will complete its fifth assessment report by November. The findings of working groups II and III will focus on the impacts of climate change, and on how societies can adapt to or mitigate those effects (working groupI published its findings last year). Away from formal negotiations, United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon is hoping for bold pledges on emissions at a summit in New York in September. In research, a large carbon capture and storage project in Canada the Can$1.24-billion (US$1.17-billion) Boundary Dam coal power-plant in Saskatchewan begins commercial operation in April.

Here is the original post:
What to expect in 2014: Neural feats