Cell biology research in China is a relatively young plant that has been growing apace with the country's rapid global development. Indeed, the plant is also increasingly bearing fruit — not just in the shape of new and well-equipped research facilities such as the SIBS's Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, which would not be out of place in Shanghai's famous architectural show room along the Huangpu River, but also in terms of high profile papers. China's publication rate in peer reviewed journals has risen eightfold in the past decade to rival that of the UK and Japan. Importantly, the number of papers with in excess of 20 citations has also risen tenfold, although in terms of absolute levels they remain in the hundreds, and biomedical science represent less than 20% of mainland China's high-impact papers. We have also noticed a similar tenfold rise in submissions from China to this journal over the past seven years, which we hope will be reflected in a proportional representation in print. However, to put things into perspective, current submissions from China amount to 2% of total submissions to Nature Cell Biology.

For over ten years Nature Publishing Group has maintained the Nature Japan Gateway, which provides Japanese language access to content across the Nature titles, as well as jobs advertisements to over 120,000 registrants who can chose from fifteen customized e-mail alerts. More recently, similar gateways for Korea and China were launched, and despite the considerably lower number of registrants, these services already receive high web-traffic.

The new Nature China portal has a dedicated Hong Kong-based editor, who will provide accessible short summaries in English and Chinese to a weekly updated selection of top research papers across all fields and across the literature from mainland China and Hong Kong. The site also allows users to recommend papers, and the community is encouraged to comment and vote on these papers as part of a global virtual journal club. In addition, there will be an open-access archive linking to papers from China published across the Nature journals in the last five years. The site has a local mirror, which will provide Chinese readers with efficient access to the articles featured.

So whether you are a researcher in China or simply interested in Chinese science, do sign up to the weekly e-mail alert and contribute your selection of the best research China has to offer when the full site launches in late April.