A web focus is a collection of articles on a related theme drawn from the entire Nature family of journals. With content ranging from Highlights and News & Views articles, to Reviews and primary research papers, a web focus provides a panoramic view of a key area of biology.

Collection

Stem cells

May

Produced with support from Merck

Stem–cell research has a history of more than 20 years, and every month we are gaining a better understanding of both embryonic and adult stem cells at the molecular level and of how they behave in their biological context. Such progress is of great significance in cell and developmental biology, as is evident in this Nature Reviews Collection.

Collection

MicroRNA and cancer

May

Produced with support from Exiqon

Nature Publishing Group presents a Collection on microRNAs and cancer, which includes original Research and Review articles, as well as Research Highlights from Nature Genetics, Nature Reviews Genetics and Nature Reviews Cancer. The collection is freely available until September 30th, 2008, thanks to the support from Exiqon.

Collection

Biomarkers

June

Produced with support from Merck

Biomarkers can help assess and treat patients with cancer. They can be used not only to diagnose cancer, but also to determine the stage and subtype of a tumour to assess patient prognosis and the ability of a tumour to respond to a particular therapy. This Nature Reviews Cancer collection includes a selection of recent Reviews, Perspectives and Research Highlights that provide an up-to-date insight into the development and ultimate clinical use of cancer biomarkers.

Milestones

Cancer

April

Produced with support from Applied Biosystems, AstraZeneca, Genentech, Cancer Research UK and ImClone Systems Incorporated

Milestones in Cancer is a series of specially written articles, highlighting the most influential discoveries in the field of cancer during the period from 1889 to 2001.

Focus

Biomarkers

February

Biomarkers are invaluable tools for cancer detection, diagnosis, patient prognosis and treatment selection. This focus discusses issues surrounding important genetic, epigenetic and protein biomarkers of cancer, including how these can be used to better understand tumour formation and to develop new therapeutic approaches.

Collection

DNA methylation

October

Produced with support from Biotage

Epigenetics — the study of heritable changes in gene expression or function that occur without a change in the DNA sequence itself — is proving to have an increasingly important role in both human development and disease, particularly cancer.

Collection

Cancer vaccines

September

Produced with support from SAFC Biosciences

The development of cancer vaccines is not a new idea. In the late nineteenth century William Coley and colleagues observed that spontaneous tumour regression, although rare, often occurred after patients had mounted an immune response to an opportunistic infection. These ideas spawned many years of research into cancer vaccines, which, although successful in the laboratory, proved highly disappointing in the clinic.

Collection

Systems biology

May

Produced with support from Sigma

The intricate connections between individual pathways and entire networks govern the behaviours of cells, tissues and, ultimately, whole organisms. Understanding these connections is the ambitious aim of systems biology.

Collection

Proteomics

March

Produced with support from Sigma

The availability of whole genome sequences for many organisms has resulted in a rush to elucidate the function of the products of these genomes and their role in health and disease. But deciphering the complexity of the proteome is a daunting task, and the application of proteomics is still very much in its infancy.

Focus

Kinases in cancer

December

We examine the role of kinase signalling in cancer and the potential for developing effective therapies that can modulate various kinase pathways. Following the success of targeted kinase inhibitor therapies such as imatinib and gefitinib this continues to be a fast moving area of research.

Collection

Microscopy

July

Produced with support from Richardson Technologies

Since the early studies of the 17th century, microscopy has played a vital role in biological discovery − it enabled Robert Hooke to describe cells and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek to discover bacteria. Four centuries later, microscopy techniques remain at the centre of cell-biological research.

Focus

Targeted therapies

January

Identification of specific molecules involved in cancer and the development of inhibitors to block these molecules − targeted therapies − is an exciting and interesting area of current cancer research.The articles cover the biology of the main signalling pathways involved in cancer and the identification of important targets, as well as translating these discoveries into drug design, drug development and use in the clinic.

Focus

Angiogenesis

June

Angiogenesis − the development of new blood vessels − is essential for normal embryonic development, skeletal growth, wound healing and reproductive functions, but also contributes to the pathogenesis of numerous disorders, including cancer, arthritis and psoriasis.

Focus

Early detection

April

Despite a vast amount of research into improving therapies and developing new ones, our ability to treat cancer has not significantly improved over the past few decades. Detecting cancer early − before it has had a chance to metastasize − remains the best strategy for reducing cancer deaths, but are we any better at detection than treatment?

Focus

Metastasis

August

Until recently, most of the emphasis in cancer research has been on the pathogenesis of primary tumours. Most cancer deaths, however, are the result of metastatic disease. Researchers are only just beginning to understand how cancer cells escape from their original location, travel throughout the body and select a new site at which to form new tumours, and metastasis research is one of the most rapidly developing areas of cancer biology..

Focus

Stem Cells

June

Further characterization of cancer stem cells might lead to improved diagnostics and therapies by allowing us to better identify and target cancer stem cells. To cure cancer it is necessary to kill, differentiate or prevent the metastasis of cancer stem cells.

Milestones

Cell division

December

Seminal experiments and discoveries shape the development of all scientific fields, and hold valuable lessons for future researchers. But these milestones are often recognized only by those directly in the field − hence the 'milestones in cell division' project, which aims to bring these discoveries to a wider audience.