Mapping mutations & magic mushrooms…

This week, Professor Stebbing’s insights point to a powerful new AI tool for understanding changes in human DNA, and early research suggesting that psilocybin could help protect patients from chemotherapy-induced nerve damage.

AI Maps Every Possible Change in Human DNA and What It Means for Cancer

On 9 September 2026, Google DeepMind released the AlphaGenome Atlas, a tool that does something previously impossible: it predicts the molecular consequences of every single one of the approximately nine billion possible single-letter changes to the human genome.

To understand why this matters, it helps to know what we mean by a single-letter change. Our DNA is written in a four-letter code – A, T, C and G – and our genome contains roughly three billion of these letters. A change in just one letter, anywhere in that sequence, can sometimes have no effect at all, and sometimes can cause serious disease. Identifying which single-letter changes are dangerous, and understanding exactly how they cause harm, has been one of the central challenges of genetics for decades. Cancers, for instance, are driven by mutations – changes in the DNA sequence of cells – and knowing which mutations matter and precisely what they do is central to developing better diagnostics and treatments.

The AlphaGenome Atlas addresses this by running DeepMind's AlphaGenome model across every possible single-letter variant in the genome and storing the results in a single, freely searchable resource. The resulting dataset – roughly one petabyte in size, more than 30 times larger than the AlphaFold protein database – contains predictions for how each variant affects gene expression, splicing (the process by which genes are read and converted into proteins), and other key molecular processes. It also includes a new ranking score that helps researchers prioritise which variants are most likely to be functionally important.

The practical value for cancer research is substantial. When doctors sequence a tumour or a patient's genome, they often find hundreds or thousands of variants and face the challenge of working out which ones are driving the cancer and which are incidental background noise. A resource that predicts the functional consequences of all possible variants – including ones that have never been seen before in any patient – can significantly speed up that detective work. In one illustrative example described in the email, the tool helped identify a pathogenic variant in a rare disease patient by predicting that a specific genetic change would disrupt normal gene splicing in a harmful way.

DeepMind has made the Atlas freely available for non-commercial research use. It is important to note that AlphaGenome has not been validated or approved for clinical use, and the company itself states that it is a research tool that can serve only as part of the evidence chain in clinical settings, not as a standalone diagnostic. But as a research resource for understanding cancer genetics, it represents a significant step forward.

Read more: AlphaGenome Atlas – Google DeepMind

Could Psilocybin Protect Chemotherapy Patients' Nerves?

A study published on 5 September 2026 in the journal Science has found that psilocybin – the active compound in psychedelic mushrooms – may prevent one of chemotherapy's most debilitating side effects: damage to the peripheral nerves in the hands and feet.

Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a serious and common problem. More than 60% of patients treated with certain chemotherapy drugs – particularly platinum-based compounds like cisplatin and taxanes like paclitaxel and docetaxel – develop symptoms including numbness, burning pain, extreme sensitivity to cold and loss of sensation in the hands and feet. In severe cases, the nerve damage is bad enough that oncologists have to reduce the dose of an otherwise effective cancer treatment, or stop it altogether. Worse still, in many patients the damage persists long after the cancer has been treated, and there are currently few effective ways to reverse it once it has occurred.

The new research, led by scientists at MD Anderson Cancer Center and published in Science, found that in mice, as few as two doses of psilocybin given before chemotherapy prevented much of the nerve damage that normally follows treatment. Crucially, the protection persisted through repeated chemotherapy cycles. And importantly, psilocybin did not appear to reduce the chemotherapy's ability to kill cancer cells – suggesting that the drug might be able to protect nerves without undermining the treatment itself.

What makes the finding particularly interesting is the mechanism. The researchers found that psilocybin activates a receptor called 5-HT2A (a serotonin receptor) which sets off a chain of biological events that preserve the movement of mitochondria – the energy-producing machinery of cells – along the lengths of peripheral nerves. Chemotherapy disrupts this mitochondrial movement, effectively cutting off the energy supply to the nerve endings and causing them to degenerate. Psilocybin appears to prevent that disruption, keeping the nerve endings alive and functional.

Equally striking is that the psychedelic experience itself may not be what produces the benefit. When researchers used a non-hallucinogenic compound that targets the same 5-HT2A receptor and pathway, it provided similar neuroprotection. That raises the possibility that future treatments could preserve the therapeutic benefit while avoiding the psychedelic effects – which is important both practically and from a regulatory perspective.

This research was conducted in mice and in human nerve tissue in the laboratory, and must be understood in that context. Animal studies regularly fail to translate into successful treatments in humans. There are real uncertainties about whether the same effect would be seen in cancer patients, at what doses, and with what side effects. Psilocybin is also a controlled substance, and any clinical use would require further regulatory approval. But the finding is considered sufficiently significant that it was published in one of the world's most selective scientific journals, and it opens a genuinely new avenue for addressing a problem that has lacked good solutions for decades. 

Read more: Psilocybin prevents chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy – Science
Also see: MD Anderson Cancer Centre research newsroom

As always, if anything in this summary feels relevant to your own situation or that of someone you care for, please do speak with your clinical team before drawing any conclusions or making any changes.

With thanks to Professor Justin Stebbing for his insights and research.