Outlook in 2015

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men — most will develop the disease if they live long enough. But it is not always deadly, and the number of cases often depends on how hard doctors look for it. By Richard Hodson, infographic by Mohamed Ashour.

Despite advances in detection and therapy, much about this common malignancy remains unknown. Here are some of the most important unresolved issues.

Surveillance is becoming a watchword for men with less-aggressive prostate cancer. If and when the disease progresses, new and newly-timed therapies are at hand.

Inflammation is an underlying cause of many cancers — and prostate cancer might turn out to be one of their number.

Strategies to destroy treatment-defying tumours in men with prostate cancer are beginning to make a difference.

In 2004, surgeon Declan Murphy was not convinced that using a robot to remove a cancer-riddled prostate was a significant improvement on keyhole, or laparoscopic, surgery. Eight-hundred robotic procedures later, he has not only changed his mind, but is now director of Robotic Surgery at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

Prostate-specific antigen is not a bad test, it is just improperly applied, says Monique Roobol

Work to determine which prostate cancers are truly dangerous may finally be coming to fruition.

The standard blood test for prostate cancer led to a spike in diagnoses of the disease. But the technique's results are often misleading — and conflicting studies have not helped to forge a consensus.

Combination therapies that activate the immune system in complementary ways could help more men with prostate cancer to contain their disease long term.

Genome editing uses enzymes that are targeted to sequences of DNA to make cuts. These cuts are then repaired by the cell's machinery. This technology allows scientists to disrupt or modify genes with unprecedented precision. By Amy Maxmen, infographic by Denis Mallet.

Despite the popularity of genome-editing techniques, researchers are still grappling with the known unknowns of the technologies. Here are four of their most pressing questions.

The first therapeutics based on genome-editing tools will treat diseases caused by single genes, but many other factors dictate what is currently possible.

Scientists now have several tools to edit the genomes of living organisms. One of the most recent is revolutionizing research and has thrust two of its creators into the limelight.

Epigeneticists are harnessing genome-editing technologies to tackle a central question hanging over the community — does their field matter?

Genome-editing presents many opportunities. But the advent of human-germline editing brings urgency to ethical discussions, says Jennifer Doudna.

Rather than emphasize risks that are not entirely new, talks about germline editing should focus more on the benefits, argues George Church.

Tim Lu's synthetic-biology research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge combines biological engineering with electronics and computer science to create bacteria that make structural proteins containing tiny semi-conductors called quantum dots. He explains how genome-editing techniques are furthering his research and their role in treating disease.