Nature Publishing Group is featuring a free cell biology web focus to highlight some of the exciting research of 2007 from across the Nature Publishing Group, to coincide with the current 47th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB) meeting in Washington DC (1-5 December 2007). If you are attending the meeting, visit us at booth 228-210 to collect your free copies of Nature and other NPG cell biology titles. Nature‘s correspondent Brendan Maher is blogging live from the conference at In The Field, and you can join the ASCB group at Nature Network for further discussion. We hope you enjoy the conference in person, or, if you aren’t, vicariously via our online coverage and forums. Either way, we hope you enjoy reading this collection of excellent papers, News and Views and other articles with a cell biology theme.