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Pluripotent cells offer great promise for the future of regenerative medicine. However, cells with pluripotent potential are difficult or impossible to isolate from patients, which makes methods for experimentally induced pluripotency in readily available somatic cells invaluable. Accompanying the September issue of Nature Reviews Molecular and Cell Biology, and free to access online, is a poster by Christopher Lengner and Rudolf Jaenisch, which compares and contrasts the properties of pluripotent embryonic stem cells with those of laboratory-generated pluripotent cells.
In the same issue of the journal is a related Essay, The promise of human induced pluripotent stem cells for research and therapy, by Shin-ichi Nishikawa, Robert A. Goldstein and Concepcion R. Nierras (Nature Reviews Molec. Cell Bio. 9, 725-729; 2008) The abstract:

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are human somatic cells that have been reprogrammed to a pluripotent state. There are several hurdles to be overcome before iPS cells can be considered as a potential patient-specific cell therapy, and it will be crucial to characterize the developmental potential of human iPS cell lines. As a research tool, iPS-cell technology provides opportunities to study normal development and to understand reprogramming. iPS cells can have an immediate impact as models for human diseases, including cancer.

See also the Nature Reviews collection of articles on stem cells, which is free to access online for six months.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on August 28, 2008
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This month, microbiologists gather at ISME12, the12th meeting of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, in Carins, Australia to deliberate advances in microbial ecology that could benefit the planet. What are the key challenges for this blossoming field? Nature Reviews Microbiology asks this question in its August Editorial (6, 566; 2008).
The Editorial describes the deliberations last year of a group of microbiologists, which crystallized the main questions that face microbial ecologists and how to ensure that the microbiology field continues to meet the important demands that have been placed on it by the need to understand the ecology of two pressing global problems: climate change and disease. The group published a report, Uncharted Microbial World, in February which highlights important gaps in knowledge, including a lack of knowledge of the phages, the most populous group of microorganisms. In the words of the Nature Reviews Microbiology Editorial, "Microbial ecologists have an important part to play in investigations into both public and planetary health. This eloquently written report should provide food for thought for all those with an interest in this important field, and for those lucky enough to be attending ISME12, enjoy the meeting!"

Posted by Maxine Clarke on August 05, 2008
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Despite a cooling of interest by the media, Tadataka Yamada, Alice Dautry and Mark Walport emphasize in a Nature Commentary (454, 162; 2008), that a vaccine stockpile may be invaluable for preventing an avian-influenza (H5N1) outbreak in humans from quickly becoming a pandemic, and urge the vaccine research and development community not to become complacent about this important issue. Although their respective institutions — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pasteur Institute and the Wellcome Trust — are working with other parties to develop new resources and collaborative opportunities to provide vaccines where they may be needed most (the developing world), the authors say a wider community response is also needed.
In a related Commentary in the same issue (Nature 454, 160; 2008), Steven Salzberg calls for greater transparency in the viral-strain selection process for the human influenza vaccine. The vaccine for the 2007–2008 season failed for predictable and, says Salzberg, avoidable reasons. If the process remains closed, and researchers are denied access to sequencing data used in the selection process, future vaccine failures could be more dramatic and deadly.
There is a related (free access) Editorial in the same issue of the journal, The long war against 'flu (Nature 454, 137; 2008).
What do you think? Can a pre-pandemic vaccine curb a major catastrophe? And are the cooperative attitudes that Yamada, Dautry and Walport advocate exactly the kinds of things that are lacking from efforts to develop seasonal flu vaccines? These questions and others are being discussed online at the Nature Network Opinion forum, in which Steven Salzberg, author of one of the Nature Commentaries, writes: "What our governments can and should do is launch a crash program to create vaccines using non-egg based methods. This could allow us to get a new vaccine – if a pandemic strain appears – into production in a matter of weeks. In the meanwhile, we just have to hope that a pandemic doesn’t happen." Join the conversation at Nature Network.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on July 28, 2008
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Danae Rebecca Dodge of the Graduate School of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK, writes in Nature's Correspondence pages (Nature 454, 27; 2008):

As a PhD student in archaeology and genetics, I am all too aware of the difficulties in crossing a gaping discipline divide, as well as of their effect on academic career prospects, as discussed in the Naturejobs article 'Assembly work' (Nature 453, 422–423; 2008).
For my master's degree in biomolecular archaeology, I needed a foot in two UK universities: one in the University of Manchester's biology department and the other in the University of Sheffield's archaeology department. My former lecturers later became part of the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB) and the MSc course shifted to Sheffield, where eventually the programme ceased.
This closure was a disappointment for the nascent field of bioarchaeology, set to thrive only on a foundation of solid postgraduate training. Although the MIB and other new centres for interdisciplinary research are enthusiastically welcomed, they are few and far between and so able to offer only limited postdoctoral prospects.
Opening such centres and creating training programmes is not enough — it is also necessary to make interdisciplinary fields attractive to graduates and for senior academics to appreciate their significance. This would improve project turnover, bringing more funding to collaborative projects that would sustain interdisciplinary centres and allow academics from each discipline to gauge publications on an equal footing.
Perhaps then my search for a postdoctoral position in bioarchaeology would be easier. Although interdisciplinary projects are viewed as hot topics, in reality they lag behind as they await official establishment and recognition.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on July 17, 2008
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Every field of research has influential papers that have shaped and guided future work. In the July issue of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology (15, 655-657; 2008), Reinhard Jahn gives his picks for membrane fusion and a little bit of history about how the field has developed. He writes:

Over the past 30 years, three main lines of research have made important contributions to our present understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in membrane fusion: (i) the development and quantitative treatment of physical models describing the fusion of planar and curved bilayers at various levels of complexity and detail; (ii) the structural and mechanistic insights obtained from the investigation of fusion proteins of enveloped viruses, with research on the fusion protein of the influenza virus having made seminal contributions; and (iii) the study of fusion proteins involved in fusion events of eukaryotic cells, with the most important work being carried out on the SNARE proteins and associated regulatory proteins. In what follows, I will briefly discuss the studies that have helped form the basis for all subsequent work in the field of membrane fusion. The papers describing these studies make up my personal list of 'classics'.

Please see Nature Structural and Molecular Biology for the rest of this article, and the list of selected papers.
This issue of the journal also features a focus of articles on membrane fusion, an in-depth look at a process essential for communication within and between cells via reviews, an essay, classic papers and a library of resources.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on July 16, 2008
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In the July issue of Molecular Systems Biology (4 , Article number: 201 doi:10.1038/msb.2008.39; 2008), Jonathan A Sagotsky et al. in their article "Life Sciences and the web: a new era for collaboration, write:

The World Wide Web has revolutionized how researchers from various disciplines collaborate over long distances. This is nowhere more important than in the Life Sciences, where interdisciplinary approaches are becoming increasingly powerful as a driver of both integration and discovery. Data access, data quality, identity, and provenance are all critical ingredients to facilitate and accelerate these collaborative enterprises and it is here where Semantic Web technologies promise to have a profound impact. This paper reviews the need for, and explores advantages of as well as challenges with these novel Internet information tools as illustrated with examples from the biomedical community.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on July 14, 2008
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Nature Geoscience publishes a regular feature called BackStory, at the back of the journal or on the journal's website, in which the authors of a paper in the current issue of the journal answer questions about their field work -- providing an unusual perspective on the region of the world that contributed to the paper. The Backstory in the July issue (Nature Geoscience 1, 482; 2008), Sailing for a stretched lithosphere, describes how Jenny Collier and colleagues, having managed to get themselves and all their instruments on board a ship not too far away from an imminent war zone, enjoyed the serenity of life at sea as they investigated the rifted continental margin of India.

How long did it take to plan the fieldwork?

Two years elapsed between getting the project approved and setting sail. We wanted to use a particular vessel, the RRS Charles Darwin, which was already in the Indian Ocean and had the scientific capability that we needed. Unfortunately, we had to join a rather long waiting list. Coordination was a nightmare — our scientific instruments were all in different parts of the world, taking part in experiments that were also subject to scheduling changes. When we finally had our chance, the build-up to the Iraq invasion resulted in several changes to our port of embarkation. It was a huge relief when we finally set sail with all the equipment onboard!

See Nature Geoscience's website for the rest of the Backstory.
The paper featured is: The relationship between rifting and magmatism in the northeastern Arabian Sea, by Timothy A. Minshull, Christine I. Lane, Jenny S. Collier & Robert B. Whitmarsh (Nature Geoscience 1, 463-467; 2008).

Posted by Maxine Clarke on July 03, 2008
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In its June 2008 issue, Nature Methods presents a free-access focus on single-molecule techniques. Biologists are becoming increasingly interested in methodologies that can examine the mechanism of action of fundamental biological processes at the molecular level. The Nature Methods focus consists of four review articles that provide practical guidance for some of the techniques that are most integral to in vitro single-molecule experiments. These cover single-molecule fluorescence methods; microfluidic flow cells to manipulate experimental conditions during experiments; and force-spectroscopy techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) and optical traps to manipulate individual molecules themselves.
From the focus's Editorial: The ability to analyse biological systems at the single-molecule level opens avenues of investigation that are not possible using techniques that measure aggregate properties of molecular populations. This new vantage point can yield important insights. A textbook example is that of molecular motors. Although classical biological assays for motor function show that these molecules support constant-velocity movement, studies of individual molecules revealed that they take discrete individual steps. The technique that allowed these crucial biological observations came from the physics field in 1986—a momentous year that saw the first demonstration not only of the optical tweezers technique used in the subsequent molecular motor study but also of the atomic force microscope. Created by physicists, these force-spectroscopy methods form much of the backbone of the field of research now devoted to studying biological systems at the single-molecule level."

Please read on at the Nature Methods focus website. Comments from readers are welcome at Methagora, the Nature Methods blog.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 10, 2008
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Nature Publishing Group presents a Collection on Neurotechniques, which includes original Research, Progress and Review articles as well as Research Highlights from Nature Methods and Nature Reviews Neuroscience. This collection aims to inspire and provoke thought by drawing attention to groundbreaking advances in technology that hold great promise for the pursuit of answers to long-standing questions, such as how brain regions are connected, what contributions single neurons and populations of neurons make to behaviour and cognition, and what role cell dysfunction has in neurological disorders. This collection is freely available until November 2008. It also contains a library of links to articles published by Nature Publishing Group journals on the topic.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on June 04, 2008
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Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the United States. Understanding the genetic and pharmacological factors surrounding nicotine and other substances of abuse will lead to insight into ways to prevent psychological dependence and addiction A special web focus, presented by Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, is a compilation of some key articles from Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Nature Medicine, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, Neuropsychopharmacology and The Pharmacogenomics Journal on smoking, nicotine and addiction; many of them free to access online. Examples of featured articles include:
Development of Procedures for Early Human Screening of Smoking Cessation Medications
KA Perkins, C Lerman, ML Stitzer, CA Fonte, JL Briski, JA Scott & KNR Chengappa.
Contingency Management: Utility in the Treatment of Drug Abuse Disorders
ML Stitzer & R Vandrey.
Smoked Marijuana as Medicine: Not Much Future
H Kalant.
Clinical Pharmacology of Nicotine: Implications for Understanding, Preventing, and Treating Tobacco Addiction
NL Benowitz.
By Now, “Harm Reduction” Harms Both Science and the Public Health
AI Leshner.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on May 27, 2008
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From Nature 453, 145 (8 May 2008):
Two research centres will open their doors in Cape Town, South Africa, this month in a bid to bolster theoretical physics and mathematical sciences across the continent.
A pan-African centre of the existing African Institute for Mathematical Sciences will be launched on 12 May, followed the next day by the National Institute for Theoretical Physics, to be headquartered at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study.
The two institutes are funded mainly by the South African Department of Science and Technology. The pair will work closely with each other, using mainly local scientific talent to contribute to regional cosmology and astrophysics programmes such as SALT (the Southern Africa Large Telescope) in Sutherland and MeerKAT, a radio-telescope facility under construction in the Karoo desert.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on May 15, 2008
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The USCD-Nature Signaling Gateway would like to apply for continued funding from the US National Institutes of Health. If you are a researcher in this field, or if you are interested in this area and have been reading the articles and other content on the Gateway, please show your support by writing a letter to the team via this web form, before 30 May. Your response will help keep the content on the site freely available for all users.
The UCSD-Nature Signaling Gateway is a comprehensive and up-to-the-minute resource for anyone interested in signal transduction. The gateway represents a unique collaboration between the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and Nature Publishing Group, and is designed to facilitate navigation of the complex world of research into cellular signalling. Information and data presented here are freely available to all. It is powered by the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). It has won the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) Award for Publishing Innovation for ‘a significantly innovative approach to any aspect of publication’.
The Signaling Gateway site has three main components: a data centre (repository and toolkits); Molecule Pages (structured data on key proteins); and Signaling Update (news and comment). The Signaling Gateway is an example of a pioneering business model that allows the scientific community free access to the wealth of cell signaling information through sponsorship, described in an article by Electronic Publishing Services as ‘the door to the future’

Posted by Maxine Clarke on May 07, 2008
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A key priority in translational cancer research is the discovery of molecular biomarkers that improve the early diagnosis of cancer and guide cancer prognosis, including the design and assessment of new therapeutic avenues. A Nature Insight in the current issue (Nature 452, 547-589; 3 April 2008) highlights key approaches for the discovery and validation of cancer biomarkers, at the level of DNA, RNA and protein analysis. It also focuses on non-invasive imaging tools and serum analyses that will be important in detecting tumours and monitoring the course of cancer therapy. Translating these advances into personalized cancer care will entail challenges far beyond the scientific discovery and validation strategies. We hope that the articles in this Insight not only bring together key aspects of the translational research into cancer biomarkers but also draw attention to associated issues such as trial design, tissue collection and regulatory requirements. This Nature Insight is freely available online for six months.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on April 03, 2008
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Nature Publishing Group has launched an Asia Materials website, featuring highlights of some of the best research from all fields of materials research published in the Asia-Pacific region. A substantial share of the world’s materials research output comes from Asian countries, and the Asia-Pacific region is making rapidly increasing contributions to global scientific research. In response to these developments, scientists from Tokyo Institute of Technology (members of the Global-Center of Excellence programme on materials science), together with NPG Nature Asia-Pacific, the Asia-Pacific wing of Nature Publishing Group, have launched NPG Asia Materials in preparation for establishing a new research journal devoted to materials research. Each month, NPG Asia Materials will be updated with short, easy-to-understand highlights of research articles recently published by scientists of the region in leading journals covering all fields of materials science. An Editorial Committee manages the site and selects research highlights from the papers recommended by the site's Advisory Board. You can register for regular e-mail alerts for NPG Asia Materials.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on April 02, 2008
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Nature Neuroscience presents a special focus on decision-making in the April 2008 issue and available online, highlighting recent achievements in this field. The ability to make appropriate choices is critical for survival. Successful decision making requires the integration of sensory information, motivational states and potential outcomes to select the best action. Recently, there has been great progress in our understanding of the neural mechanisms supporting decision-making in a wide range of contexts, including risky choices and social interactions. This special focus on decision-making contains four reviews that highlight recent achievements in this important field.
An introductory article, by Nature Neuroscience associate editor Hannah Bayer, describes how the research described in the focus has made substantial progress and, in future, should lead to a more developed understanding of this behaviour that makes us unique individuals.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on April 01, 2008
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The Nature Reviews journals are presenting a collection of articles on stem cells, free to access online for six months. Stem-cell research has a history of more than 20 years, and has made some outstanding contributions to our understanding of haematopoiesis (the formation of blood cells) and embryology. The field has been transformed by successes achieved in culturing embryonic stem cells and in manipulating their differentiation in vitro. We are gaining a better understanding of both embryonic and adult stem cells at the molecular level and of how they behave in their biological context — progress that is of great significance in cell and developmental biology. An introductory editorial and summary of some of the articles in the collection can be read here.
Read more on the topic at Nature Reports Stem Cells, with its associated blog The Niche.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 27, 2008
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Hearing about past and present issues in the world community of immunology can enrich all of us, according to the Editorial in this month's (April) issue of Nature Immunology (9, 331; 2008). The journal is publishing a series of commentaries on immunology in various places in the world, to demonstrate how, as a community, immunologists work and live together to advance the discipline.
Beginning with a piece by Agustin Lage on immunology, public health and biotechnology in Cuba in February (Nat. Immun. 9, 109-112; 2008), this series provides information on funding and infrastructure for immunology, special projects, and people, places and events. It also provides an opportunity for readers to compare and contrast the familiar scene in their own regions with that of other places. Commentaries now scheduled or under consideration survey the scene in India, the Middle East, Argentina, Russia and South Africa, and, in the current issue, Xuetao Cao discusses immunology in China (Nat. Immun. 9, 339-342; 2008).
The commentaries will not cover immunology comprehensively, but will present a few well chosen places—and well-chosen authors—to provide insight into new projects, ideas and concerns. In the words of the Editorial: "We hope that these commentaries, which will appear periodically over the next year or so, will enrich understanding of the familiar and the not-so-familiar in the world of immunology."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 24, 2008
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'Heritability in the genomics era — concepts and misconceptions' is the latest title in the Nature Reviews Genetics series on fundamental concepts in genetics. The article is published in the April issue of the journal, by Peter M. Visscher, William G. Hill and Naomi R. Wray (Nat. Rev. Genet. 9, 255; 2008 | doi:10.1038/nrg2322).
An at-a-glance summary of the key points in the article is available. Heritability is one of the oldest parameters in genetics, but also one of the most misunderstood. The authors explore exactly what heritability means, the pitfalls to avoid when using it, and its continued relevance in the genomics era.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 20, 2008
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In an editorial in Molecular Systems Biology (3, 158; 2008), Synthetic biology: promises and challenges,
Luis Serrano of the Centro de Regulación Genomica in Barcelona addresses wide-ranging and fascinating aspects of this nasent field. He asks why Europe is "lagging behind the US? Perhaps it is due to a general problem in Biology research and the way Europe has structured its research. In particular, Europe will need to take more and bolder initiatives in funding and building new institutes to create the necessary critical mass, and should raise its ambition for starting novel research areas. Competitive European groups in areas related to Synthetic Biology definitely exist, mainly amongst the very top EU institutes, where the system is more flexible and excellence is actively pursued. But these few world-class laboratories are usually small, scattered and in many cases have just entered into the field of Systems Biology and, therefore, do not have the capacity to fully embark into Synthetic Biology. As in many other fields, if Europe wants to stay competitive, we will need a major overhauling of the system, promoting excellence, flexibility and young investigators with new crazy projects. In this sense the European Research Council (ERC) initiative may represent a decisive step forward."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 11, 2008
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Starting this month (March 2008), Nature Methods strongly recommends deposition of proteomics data to public repositories before manuscript submission. From the Editorial in the March issue of the journal (Nat. Meth. 5, 209; 2008):
"Several proteomics data repositories are now available that differ in terms of their goals, structure and the formats they accept. They include PRIDE, PeptideAtlas, Global Proteome Machine Database (gpmDB) and the file distribution system Tranche. The newest addition, Human Proteinpedia, is a community-based annotation tool that hosts experimental data (Nat. Biotechnol. 26, 164; 2008).
Importantly, the major database administrators have shown their willingness to work with users and with each other to facilitate data deposition. At this stage, the process can still be labor-intensive, but a repository like PRIDE provides extensive technical assistance. Under the umbrella of the ProteomExchange consortium, the major repositories are also devising ways to share their data in a collaborative fashion, capitalizing on their complementarities to minimize submission hassle while maximizing benefits.
We support these efforts and consider it premature to recommend a particular repository. Rather we will rely on community experience to determine which database or combination of databases emerges as the most useful. However, there are specific features that editors favor. In particular, we like the possibility currently offered by PRIDE and Human Proteinpedia to provide peer reviewers with access to datasets associated with a manuscript before public release, in an anonymous fashion, and to coordinate public release of the data with publication. "

Nature Methods welcomes comments on this Editorial, and the recommendations it makes, at the journal's blog Methagora.
The Nature journals' policies on data and materials availability, including links to editorials on these policies, can be found at the author and reviewers' website.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 10, 2008
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The latest in Nature's Insights series is Cardiovascular disease (Nature 451; 21 February 2008), the most common cause of death worldwide and becoming even more prevalent as the population ages. New therapeutic targets are being identified as a result of emerging insights into disease mechanisms, and new strategies are also being tested, possibly leading to new treatment options. Improving diagnosis is also crucial, because by detecting disease early, the focus could be shifted from treatment to prevention. This Insight collection of an Editorial and eight Review and Progress articles is freely accessible online.
Editorial: Cardiovascular disease
Michael Basson
Reviews and Progress articles:
Translating molecular discoveries into new therapies for atherosclerosis
Daniel J. Rader & Alan Daugherty
Triggers, targets and treatments for thrombosis
Nigel Mackman
Tackling heart failure in the twenty-first century
James O. Mudd & David A. Kass
A genetic framework for improving arrhythmia therapy
Björn C. Knollmann & Dan M. Roden
Stem-cell therapy for cardiac disease
Vincent F. M. Segers & Richard T. Lee
The developmental genetics of congenital heart disease
Benoit G. Bruneau
The search for new cardiovascular biomarkers
Robert E. Gerszten & Thomas J. Wang
Imaging of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease
Javier Sanz & Zahi A. Fayad
An index of all Nature's Insightscollections is available here.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 04, 2008
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Respiratory diseases, including allergies, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, are a major public health burden worldwide.The latest WHO statistics (2007) estimate that 300 million people worldwide have asthma, 210 million people have this type of pulmonary disease, and millions of people are affected by allergies. Each year, 250,000 people die of asthma. The prevalence of these diseases is increasing, and there is a continued need for new and improved therapies. A March 2008 Focus issue of Nature Reviews Immunology highlights the latest advances in our understanding of the immune bases of these respiratory diseases and how this knowledge can be translated into effective treatment strategies, in five review articles and four research highlights. All Focus articles are freely available online for the month of March.
See here for a listing of all previous focuses at the journals Nature Immunology and Nature Reviews Immunology.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on March 04, 2008
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Aled Edwards of the Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Toronto writes in a Correspondence in this month's issue of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (15, 116 ;2008):
The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) is a public-private partnership that places the three-dimensional structures of proteins of relevance to human health into the public domain without restriction on use. Over the past 3 years, the SGC has deposited the structures of more than 550 proteins from its Target List into the Protein DataBank (PDB); this accounts for about one-quarter of the new structures of human proteins in the PDB over this period ('new' is defined as <95% sequence identity to proteins whose structures were already available in the PDB) and the majority of the new structures from the human parasites that cause malaria, cryptosporidiosis and toxoplasmosis. Over the next 4 years, the SGC is committing to determining the structures of another 600 proteins from its Target List, including eight human integral membrane proteins.
The SGC has been releasing the coordinates for all the SGC structures into the PDB immediately after they meet the SGC quality criteria, even if the ultimate intention is to describe the work in the peer-reviewed literature. This data release policy, which has often meant that coordinates were available for several months before the manuscript was even written, has not limited the ability of our scientists to publish.
In keeping with our policy to make our data available as soon as possible, the SGC is now also providing 'pre-released' coordinates on its website when a new SGC structure is submitted to the PDB, allowing scientists to access the structural information while the deposition files are being processed. Scientists should ensure that the revised coordinate file is downloaded once it is released by the PDB.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on February 12, 2008
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Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine is pleased to announce the launch of a new Clinical Research section. It plans to publish its first original research articles in mid-2008.
Valentin Fuster, Editor-in-Chief of the journal, writes: “Our goal is to serve the community of clinical cardiologists, and demand for this expansion has come from its members. By adding outstanding original clinical research to the latest review content, we can provide everything a busy cardiologist needs to keep up to date with advances in the field. Feedback from our contributors and readers has told us that they want a journal that not only provides timely and succinct analysis of recent advances to ease reading workload, but that they also want original research of the highest quality. We agree and aim to satisfy that demand.”
The field of cardiology is very fast-moving and there is an immense amount of research published each week. Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine will present only well-chosen, robust research and it will review the rest. Filtering is key – we filter all the research published each week by scanning the literature and reviewing salient issues, and will filter our original research submissions to provide only strong, clinically relevant papers. Instructions for authors are available here; the online submission page for the journal is here; find out more about the journal here; or you can contact the research editor by email for further information about submissions of original clinical research papers on the development of new technologies or methodologies that improve understanding of cardiovascular disease or impact on diagnosis or management; new information on clinical outcomes and economics from clinical trials; and new approaches to promote cardiovascular health. A free sample issue is available here.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on January 18, 2008
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This month's Nature Medicine features a question and answer interview with Marc Hodosh, senior director of the Archon X prize, who explains why genomics was chosen for an X prize and predicts what lies ahead for the field (Nat. Med. 14, 8 ; 2008). These days, if you want to have your entire genome sequenced, you need to spend about a million dollars and wait for months. The Archon X prize for genomics—an international competition for speedy gene mapping—might change this by giving companies a huge incentive to develop better DNA sequencing technologies. The $10 million prize, first announced in late 2006, was donated by Stewart Blusson, a philanthropist and mining multimillionaire. Announcement of a winner, thinks Hodosh, is probably two to four years away. Read the full article, by Genevive Bjorn, at the Nature Medicine website.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on January 14, 2008
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