●Hippo and its mission for growth control. Ryoo, H. D. & Steller, H. Nature Cell Biology October (2003) The identification of hippo, a Drosophila gene that restricts excessive growth during development, is described in this News and Views article.

●Ratchets and clocks: the cell cycle, ubiquitylation and protein turnover. Reed, S. I. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology November (2003)

●FANCL, as in ligase. Grompe, M. Nature Genetics October (2003) This News and Views article discusses the implications of the identification of a new protein that is associated with Fanconi anaemia — sufferers of which are highly susceptible to cancer due to defective DNA repair.

●Wnt signalling gets XEEKy. Clements, W. K. & Kimelman, D. Nature Cell Biology October (2003) This News and Views article describes the involvement of the putative tumour suppressor LKB1/XEEK1 in the Wnt signalling pathway.

●Regulation of protein phosphatases in disease and behaviour. den Hertog, J. EMBO Reports November (2003) This meeting report discusses recent advances in understanding how the functions of phosphatases are regulated.

●COX-2 and beyond: approaches to prostaglandin inhibition in human disease. Fitzgerald, G. A. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery November (2003) This review discusses COX-2 inhibitors — a class of drug that has potential for use in the chemoprevention of cancer.

●Smad-dependent and Smad-independent pathways in TGF-β family signalling. Derynck, R. & Zhang, Y. E. Nature 9 October (2003) This review article discusses the different signalling mechanisms of TGF-β-related proteins — a family with key roles in tumorigenesis.

●Cancer vaccine targets leukemia. Donnelly, J. Nature Medicine November (2003)

●The cellular geography of Aurora kinases. Carmena, M. & Earnshaw, W. C. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology November (2003) This review discusses the functions of the Aurora kinases — a family of proteins that are involved in cell division, the deregulation of which might lead to cancer.