●Problems in monitoring horizontal gene transfer in field trials of transgenic plants Heinemann, J. A. & Traavik, T.

Monitoring and modeling horizontal gene transfer Nielsen, K. M. & Townsend, J. P. Nature Biotechnology September (2004). Two Perspective articles examine how horizontal gene transfer (HGT) might be tracked in the field to provide accurate risk assessments.

●Pathways of chaperone-mediated protein folding in the cytosol Young, J. C., Agashe, V. R., Siegers, K. & Hartl, F. U. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology October (2004)

●From structure to disease: the evolving tale of aquaporin biology King, L. S., Kozono, D. & Agre, P. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology September (2004) Water is essential for life on earth, but how is water transported in and out of cells? From bacteria to man, specific channel proteins known as 'aquaporins' function in water homeostasis. Here, King et al. review the structure, function and regulation of these important proteins.

●Outlook on MalariaNature 19 Aug (2004) Nature tackles the war on malaria with a collection of news and comment – including malaria-related research papers – that is free for six months.

●Immune responses to Listeria monocytogenes Pamer, E. G. Nature Reviews Immunology October (2004) In this review, Eric Pamer reviews the use of the bacterium, Listeria monocytogenes, to probe the nature of the battle between the host and the pathogen. This bacterium is easy and safe to work with and has a tractable mouse model. Immunologists and microbiologists alike can learn about the host-pathogen stand-off using this system.

●Mast-cell responses to pathogens Marshall, J. S. Nature Reviews Immunology October (2004)

●NIH lab shutdown raises concerns about US prion research Ready, T. Nature Medicine 08 July (2004) Hot on the heels of the second case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) transmitted by a blood transfusion in the UK, and a UK-based trial of potential vCJD treatments, the United States NIH prion lab is closing. This news item examines how this might impact prion research stateside.

●Nature Reviews Proteomics Collection. This collection draws together content from Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Nature Reviews Cancer, Nature Reviews Genetics and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery and provides an overview of the latest advances in proteomic research, including proteomic analysis of mitochondrial changes in cancer cells, ways to improve peptide-sequencing techniques and the use of proteomic technologies to analyse clinical samples. Visit http://www.nature.com/reviews/focus/proteomics for free online access for six months. Supported by Sigma-Aldrich.