When carrying out research, it's important to be coordinated in time and space. Time is of the essence when grant deadlines are looming, and spatial coordination is essential in a crowded laboratory. This need for time/space coordination is also applicable to cells, and an example of this is discussed in a Review on page 127 by Eckart D. Gundelfinger, Michael M. Kessels and Britta Qualmann. In secretory cells, exocytosis must be tightly coupled to endocytosis to control the surface area and composition of the plasma membrane and, although we understand the processes of exocytosis and endocytosis quite well, what is less clear is how these two events are coordinated in time and space.

The importance of spatial coordination is highlighted in a Review on page 105 by José D. Faraldo-Gómez and Mark S. P. Sansom. They describe how Gram-negative bateria acquire iron — a process that requires the coordinated action of various proteins to transport iron-containing compounds across the bacterial cell wall and the inner and outer membranes. Spatial coordination is also important for the formation of protein complexes. On page 140, Laszlo Lorand and Robert M. Graham review transglutaminases, enzymes that catalyse the crosslinking of proteins in space to generate and strengthen supramolecular structures. And, on page 95, Jürg Tschopp, Fabio Martinon and Kimberly Burns discuss NALPs, a new protein family that is involved in inflammation. NALP1 and other proteins come together in space to form a complex called the inflammasome, which results in the activation of pro-inflammatory caspases.

Finally, back to time. In an Opinion article on page 157, Crispin J. Miller and Teresa K. Attwood look to the future and try to predict how the increasing scale of data analysis will affect the bioinformatics job market.