Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Interdisciplinary work in the life sciences at the boundaries of biology, chemistry and physics is making enormous strides. This progress was showcased at the recent Single Molecule Biophysics conference.
Chemical and genetic approaches are extensively used to probe living systems at the subcellular level and to advance therapeutic target discovery. The 2006 American Society for Cell Biology meeting highlighted the growing importance of chemical biology approaches in cell biology research.
The nascent field of glycomics is currently undergoing rapid development, largely as a result of advances in technologies for analyzing glycan structure, unraveling glycan-protein interactions and establishing the functional significance of glycans. A meeting was held in November 2006 to explore the challenges and opportunities ahead for this emerging 'omics' domain.
