News & Comment

In this Comment, Ngan Huang et al. discuss recent advances in cardiovascular tissue engineering and some of the main challenges that remain in translating these advances to the clinic. The authors propose future direction for the field to focus research efforts.

Jelena Baranovic began her independent career at University of Edinburgh in September 2018. In this short Q&A she tells us about her experience as an early career researcher, the advice she would give to her younger self, and the lessons learned from studying ion channel physiology, for both biology and career development.

Blake Ushijima is a post-doctoral researcher at Oregon State University, where he studies the microbes causing disease in corals. In this next instalment of our Q&A series, he discusses how he got into marine microbiology and the anxieties of researchers studying coral ecosystems.

Ragothaman Yennamalli is an Assistant Professor at Jaypee University of Information Technology in Waknaghat, India, where he uses computational tools to study protein structure and function. In this installment of our Q&A series with early-career researchers, Ragothaman tells us about his journey from microbiology to computational biology and the inspiration and challenges he experienced along the way.

This interview in our series highlighting early-career researchers is with Gregory Lavieu, INSERM investigator at Institut Curie in Paris, France. In this series, we aim to bring attention to the diversity and individual stories of early-career researchers (defined as postdoctoral scientists through to tenure, or the equivalent). Gregory joined the institute as a permanent researcher in October 2017 to unlock the mysteries of extracellular vesicles. Here he discusses the many unanswered questions in the field as well as his unconventional path to his current position.

A year has passed since Communications Biology opened for submissions. We’d like to take this opportunity to look back on the past year and thank all those who have contributed to the journal.

Gerrit Maus began his independent career at Nanyang Technological University in October 2015. In this short interview, part of our series highlighting early-career researchers (https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0061-3), he tells us about his experience as an early-career researcher, the advice he would give to his younger self, and the amazing superpowers of our eyes.

Caroline Palmer proposes the concept of coral holobiont damage thresholds to stimulate research into coral health and immunity as tropical reefs are increasingly threatened by climate change. This framework may be used to develop targeted approaches to coral reef restoration, management and conservation.

Today we publish a Q&A with Dr. Marie Heffern, the first in a series of short interviews with early career researchers. We will be publishing these throughout the next year and welcome suggestions for featured researchers.

Marie Heffern began her independent career at UC Davis in July 2017. In this short Q&A (the first of a new series highlighting early-career researchers), she tells us about her experience as a young researcher and the advice she has for her younger self.

Volker Hartenstein and Angela Giangrande discuss recent advances and future directions in glial biology and evolution in the context of a recent scientific conference. Their Comment illustrates the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to answering outstanding questions in biology.

Scientific investigation is grounded in the objective pursuit of facts as guided by the scientific method. The process by which new results are vetted and communicated publicly—peer review—should be guided by similar principles.

We are pleased to introduce Communications Biology. Our aim is simple: to provide a place for all biologists, regardless of research topic, to publish high-quality work that advances their field of research.