Nature Chemical Biology 15th anniversary

Over the past decade and a half, chemical biology has crystallized as a discipline and extended its reach into new scientific areas, but the field’s greatest promise lies ahead.

We asked a collection of chemical biologists, “What was the most exciting research achievement or technology innovation in chemical biology in the last five years?” and reveal some of the perspectives we received.

We present a selection of papers published in Nature Chemical Biology over the past five years that reflect the diversity and excitement of chemical biology research.

This historical Perspective on continuous directed evolution focuses on laboratory approaches that enable greater understanding of evolving molecular populations and offer investigators tools to guide the emergence of new biomolecular systems.

This Perspective highlights emerging themes in the inter-regulation of the genome and metabolism via chromatin, including nonenzymatic histone modifications, cofactor-promiscuous chromatin-modifying enzymes, and subnucleocytoplasmic metabolite pools.