Focus

Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Focus issue:
December 2010 Volume 6, No 12

This special issue presents a collection of articles exploring the foundations of chemical biology, reviewing some of the major technical and conceptual advances of the last decade, and imagining the future of this vibrant field.

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Editorial

Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Contemplating chemical biology p845

doi:10.1038/nchembio.465

In this special issue, Nature Chemical Biology takes a look at the past, present and future of chemical biology.

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Special Feature

Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

A decade of chemical biology pp847 - 854

Mirella Bucci, Catherine Goodman & Terry L Sheppard

doi:10.1038/nchembio.489

With insights from a panel of experts, the Nature Chemical Biology editors examine the evolution and current era of chemical biology.

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Commentaries

Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: Informative diagnostics for personalized medicine pp857 - 859

Ryan C Bailey

doi:10.1038/nchembio.488

Some of the most celebrated triumphs of chemical biology are molecularly targeted therapeutics to combat human disease. However, a grand challenge looms as informative diagnostic strategies must be developed to realize the full impact of these promising pharmaceutical agents.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: Transforming biosynthesis into an information science pp859 - 861

Travis S Bayer

doi:10.1038/nchembio.487

Engineering biosynthetic pathways to natural products is a challenging endeavor that promises to provide new therapeutics and tools to manipulate biology. Information-guided design strategies and tools could unlock the creativity of a wide spectrum of scientists and engineers by decoupling expertise from implementation.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: Accessing new chemical space for 'undruggable' targets pp861 - 863

Sivaraman Dandapani & Lisa A Marcaurelle

doi:10.1038/nchembio.479

The synthesis and biological annotation of small molecules from underexplored chemical space will play a central role in the development of drugs for challenging targets currently being identified in frontier areas of biological research such as human genetics.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: RNA epigenetics? pp863 - 865

Chuan He

doi:10.1038/nchembio.482

Post-transcriptional RNA modifications can be dynamic and might have functions beyond fine-tuning the structure and function of RNA. Understanding these RNA modification pathways and their functions may allow researchers to identify new layers of gene regulation at the RNA level.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: The chemistry of a dynamic genome pp866 - 868

Rahul M Kohli

doi:10.1038/nchembio.471

In the postsequencing era, chemical biology is uniquely situated to investigate genomic DNA alterations arising through epigenetic modifications, genetic rearrangements or active mutation. These transformations significantly expand nature's diversity and may profoundly alter our view of DNA's coding potential.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: Beyond discovery: probes that see, grab and poke pp868 - 870

Joshua A Kritzer

doi:10.1038/nchembio.469

Chemical biology is now able to discover molecules that manipulate virtually any biological target or process. It remains a grand challenge to leverage these molecules into useful probes that can be used to address unsolved problems in biology.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: Synthetic immunology to engineer human immunity pp871 - 872

David A Spiegel

doi:10.1038/nchembio.477

Rationally designing new strategies to control the human immune response stands as a key challenge for the scientific community. Chemical biologists have the opportunity to address specific issues in this area that have important implications for both basic science and clinical medicine.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: Exploiting single-cell variation for new antibiotics pp873 - 875

Erick Strauss

doi:10.1038/nchembio.483

Variations between single members of a bacterial population can lead to antibiotic resistance that is not gene based. The future of effective infectious disease management might depend on a better understanding of this phenomenon and the potential to manipulate both it and microbial population dynamics in general.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: Chassis cells for industrial biochemical production pp875 - 877

Claudia E Vickers, Lars M Blank & Jens O Krömer

doi:10.1038/nchembio.484

Hyper-performing whole-cell catalysts are required for the renewable and sustainable production of petrochemical replacements. Chassis cells—self-replicating minimal machines that can be tailored for the production of specific chemicals—will provide the starting point for designing these hyper-performing 'turbo cells'.

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Focus on Chemical Biology: Past, Present and Future

Grand Challenge Commentary: Chemical transdifferentiation and regenerative medicine pp877 - 879

Bridget K Wagner

doi:10.1038/nchembio.472

The ability to alter cell identity with small molecules represents a powerful approach to restore biological function lost because of cellular deficiency. Developing this capability through advances in chemical biology could have an enormous impact on human health.

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