Images of some of the 125 human embryonic stem cell lines in laboratories around the world studied by the International Stem Cell Initiative (p 1132).

Cynomolgus macaque (left), also known as the crab-eating macaque, and Chinese rhesus macaque (right). Researchers from The South China Center for Innovative Pharmaceuticals and BGI-Shenzhen have sequenced and compared the genomes of these two biomedically important species (p 1019). Credit: Marina Corral; photos courtesy of Guangmei Yang.

Confocal (main image) and RESOLFT (inset) images of keratin labeled with the fluorescent protein Dreiklang in PtK2 cells. Jakobs and colleagues demonstrate the superiority of Dreiklang, a photoswitchable variant of YFP with three distinct wavelengths for imaging and turning the protein on and off, for resolving structures in living cells (p 942). Credit: Marina Corral, based on images and concept from Stefan Jakobs.

Staining of a novel glycan antigen, SSEA-5, expressed on human pluripotent stem cells reveals two inner cell masses in a human monozygotictwin blastocyst. Drukker and colleagues use SSEA-5 to remove rare tumor-forming cells from cultures of differentiated human embryonic stem cells (p 829). Credit: Chad Tang

Chinese hamster ovary cells in culture, imaged with an atomic force microscope. Palsson, Wang and colleagues have sequenced the genome of cells from the CHO-K1 line (pictured), an ancestor of cell lines widely used to produce therapeutic proteins (p 735). Credit: Hermann Schillers, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.

Emerging order from RNA-Seq data. Regev and colleagues describe algorithms for assembling hundreds of millions of short reads into full-length alternatively spliced transcripts without the aid of a reference genome (p 644). Credit: ©Kenneth Eward.

Fruiting date palm (Phoenix dactylifera, Khalas variety). The draft genome of date palm assembled by Malek and colleagues has important implications for cultivation and improvement of the crop (p 521). Credit: Mohammed Sulaiman Khalfan Al-Rawahi.

Small blood vessels induced by delivery of the growth factors FGF2 and FGF9. Pickering and colleagues show that inclusion of FGF9 induces smooth muscle cells (green) to wrap around endothelial-cell tubes (red), generating longer-lasting, vasoreactive microvessels (p 421). Credit: Marina Corral, based on reconstructed confocal images from Geoffrey Pickering.

Rod-shaped Escherichia coli bacteria against a background of metabolic pathways. Liao and colleagues introduce pathways into bacteria to convert amino acids into alcohol biofuels (p 346). Credit: Marina Corral; based on false-colored scanning electron micrograph by David Scharf (Getty Images).

Nature Biotechnology celebrates 15 years of publishing the very best of biotech science and business. Cover art: Marina Corral.

How transcription activator–like effectors (TALEs) bind DNA is unknown. A nuclear magnetic resonance structure of a single TALE repeat was used to model two DNA-bound TALEs, each comprising 13 repeats. Also shown are two FokI nuclease domains based on a crystal structure. Miller et al. use TALE – nuclease fusions for genome targeting in human cells (p 143). Image credit: Jeffrey C. Miller, Sangamo Biosciences.

The mixture of maternal and paternal sets of chromosomes in diploid organisms makes it difficult to determine haplotypes. Fan et al. and Kitzman et al. describe experimental approaches to genome-wide haplotyping using microfluidics and multiplexed large-insert cloning, respectively. Credit: Marina Corral & Erin Dewalt, based on “Colored LM of a normal male karyotype” by L. Willatt, East Anglian Regional Genetics Service/Photo Researchers, Inc.