Two-dimensional framework materials offer atomic-level control over electronic properties and enable novel quantum phenomena and tunable functionality. This Review highlights how structural design, doping and measurement techniques influence conductivity, and it underscores key strategies for optimizing transport properties, with broad implications for electronics, energy and quantum technologies.

Airway mucus complicates treatment of respiratory disease by both defending the lungs and hindering inhaled drugs to cross the barriers. This Review explores translational advances in inhalable materials and biologics that enhance mucus protection or drug penetration.

Accurate, spatiotemporally resolved monitoring of environments and ecosystems serves as the starting point to both identify and remedy natural or anthropogenic environmental hazards. This Review covers materials science advances supporting a new paradigm in environmental sensing: distributed networks of sensing elements capable of system-level profiling with the possibility of harmless environmental resorption after a predetermined recording period.

The van der Waals MA₂Z₄ materials are a rapidly growing class of 2D materials with diverse electronic phases. This Review explores the structure, synthesis, properties and diverse applications of the emerging MA₂Z₄ family, highlighting their potential across electronics, catalysis and energy storage.

An article in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces reports a 3D-printed, metal–organic framework-coated respiratory filter that both allows airflow and catalytically destroys chemical warfare agents.

An article in Nature Communications presents a digital platform that integrates the design, fabrication and optimization of catalytic reactors, combining machine learning and 3D printing.

An article in Nature Communications reports a versatile platform for creating slippery surfaces with precise control over their structural topologies.

An article in Nature Communications presents an irregular growth strategy that generates disordered architected materials with excellent static mechanical cloaking and camouflage capabilities.

Extended producer responsibility is a policy approach that makes companies accountable for their products’ end of life. Nature Reviews Materials speaks with industrial ecologist Reid Lifset about how extended producer responsibility schemes work in practice, and whether they truly incentivize sustainable materials design, as intended.

mRNA-loaded lipid nanoparticles have gained recognition as a promising therapeutic platform against a wide range of diseases. However, a key component of mRNA-loaded lipid nanoparticles, the polyethylene glycol-conjugated lipid, presents inherent barriers to their therapeutic success. Emerging strategies are now offering potential ways to overcome these limitations.