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  • Genomic diversity is a driving force influencing human and animal health, and susceptibility to disease. During the Keystone Symposium on Leveraging Genomic Diversity to Promote Human and Animal Health held in Kampala on Lake Victoria in Uganda, we brought together diverse communities of geneticists with primary objectives to explore areas of common interest, joint technological and methodological developments and applications, and to leverage opportunities for cross-learning. We explored translational genomics research in farmed animals and humans, debated the differences in research objectives in high- and low-resourced environments, delved into infectious diseases and zoonoses affecting humans and animals and considered diversity and cultural context at many levels. The 109 participants were from 22 countries (13 in Africa) and included 44 global travel awardees from 9 countries, equal numbers of men and women, of whom 31 were students and 13 senior investigators.

    • Michèle Ramsay
    • Han G. Brunner
    • Appolinaire Djikeng
    CommentOpen Access
  • Venkatesan and Coskun propose the use of digital posters instead of paper posters for disseminating progress reports in scientific meetings. These digital frames are capable of uploading multiple display items via wireless network and changing the interactive display with wave of a hand over an attached motion sensor.

    • Mythreye Venkatesan
    • Ahmet F. Coskun
    CommentOpen Access
  • Our editorial model is a collaborative one; the in-house professional team of editors works together with external editors in selecting the papers we publish. Here we discuss how this editorial model is set up and share the thoughts of some of our board members.

    EditorialOpen Access
  • It is increasingly recognized that research is most impactful when disseminated to broad audiences within and beyond the scientific community. For children and youth, opportunities to share independent research beyond family and science fair attendees are limited by a lack of appropriate dissemination platforms. This lack of opportunity creates the ‘science fair dilemma’, where the engagement of students with the scientific community is curtailed once science fairs wrap up. Here we discuss this missed opportunity to encourage engagement and skill development of young scientists, and provide a case study of a student centric science journal aimed to tackle these challenges.

    • Rhiannon Ng
    • Kira Slivitzky
    • Dayre McNally
    CommentOpen Access
  • Verena Ruprecht is a group Leader in the Cell & Developmental Biology program at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona. She studies organismal development using zebrafish as a system, taking an interdisciplinary approach involving cell and molecular biology, imaging and mathematical tools to obtain information on the scale of molecules, cells, and tissues. We have asked Dr. Ruprecht about her research and thoughts about the future of her field as part our series on early-career researchers.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • The theme of this year’s Peer Review Week, Quality in Peer Review, reflects both the necessity of peer review and the growing uncertainty about its role in scholarly publishing. We support peer review that aims to improve manuscripts through critical evaluation before publication.

    EditorialOpen Access
  • Toshiro Moroishi is an Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Enzymology at Kumamoto University, Japan where he has led his own group since December 2017. Research in his lab is focused on the role and regulation of Hippo signalling in development and cancer with a specific interest in the role for Hippo in immunosuppression. He tells us about his research interests, career and lessons learned along the way, as part of our series on early-career researchers.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Graphics are becoming increasingly important for scientists to effectively communicate their findings to broad audiences, but most researchers lack expertise in visual media. We suggest collaboration between scientists and graphic designers as a way forward and discuss the results of a pilot project to test this type of collaboration.

    • Colin K. Khoury
    • Yael Kisel
    • Ari Novy
    CommentOpen Access
  • As of January 1st 2019, authors submitting manuscripts to Communications Biology can choose to publish the reviewer reports and author replies with their articles. The first articles with associated reviewer reports have now been published, representing an important step in our broader journey toward greater openness.

    EditorialOpen Access
  • Dr. Lovorka Stojic is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge and will start her own research group at the Barts Cancer Institute this fall. Her research focuses on understanding how long noncoding RNAs and RNA-binding proteins regulate key cellular processes and how dysregulation of these processes can contribute to human diseases such as cancer. As part of our series on early-career researchers, we asked Dr. Stojic to tell us about her research and career path. She also shares her challenges from juggling between multiple roles and advice for job applications.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Dr. Kate Miroshnikova is a bioengineer by training and is currently a postdoctoral EMBO/HFSP fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing and at the Helsinki Institute of Life Science. She is interested in understanding biomechanical regulation of stem cell fate decisions in health and disease. Kate’s long term scientific interest is to understand how cells and tissues sense, integrate, and adapt their transcriptomes and proteomes to the highly dynamic mechanical environments without compromising structural and genomic integrity.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Dr. Matt Field is a Senior Research Fellow in Bioinformatics at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University, co-director of the Centre for Tropical Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology, and a Chief Investigator for the Centre for Personalised Immunology, an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence. His research focuses on developing high-throughput bioinformatic analysis pipelines and bringing genomics and personalised medicine into routine clinical practice. In this instalment of our series on early-career researchers, we asked Dr. Field to talk about his research, career trajectory, and the importance of remembering the big picture when working on projects with potential clinical impact.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Dr. Benjamin Bitler began his independent career at University of Colorado in January 2017. In this short Q&A he tells us about his motivation and passion for research, advice he would give to his younger self, and the attributes of cancer cells that he finds most perplexing.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Dr. Natalia Castaño-Rodríguez is a National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Fellow in the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales. Her research focuses on understanding how host immunogenetic factors interact with bacterial infection and gut dysbiosis to regulate tumorigenesis and chronic inflammation in humans, using molecular biology, microbiology, genetics, and bioinformatics. As part of our series on early-career researchers, we asked Dr. Castaño-Rodríguez to talk to us about her research and career path. She also shares the lesson she’s learned from studying the bacteria colonizing our stomachs.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Fabien Pifferi et al. discuss the latest research in using caloric restriction for promoting healthspan and lifespan in primates. Their Comment touches on their previous study, addressing how to combine nutrition-based clinical protocols with interventions to delay the onset of age-related diseases.

    • Fabien Pifferi
    • Jérémy Terrien
    • Fabienne Aujard
    CommentOpen Access
  • Mathew Seymour discusses the current status of using environmental DNA derived directly from natural environments to study biodiversity, and its applications in conservation and ecological research. In his Comment, he explores how eDNA as a technology can foster multi-disciplinary collaboration.

    • Mathew Seymour
    CommentOpen Access
  • Dr. Alexander Wyatt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. His research uses genomics and bioinformatics to understand lethal prostate and bladder cancer and identify potential new targets for therapy. In this latest instalment of our series highlighting early-career researchers in biology, Dr. Wyatt tells us about research interests and career and about the challenges of the demanding research faculty workload. We’re sure many of our readers will appreciate Dr. Wyatt’s advice on the importance of learning to say “no”.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Dr. Andrea Henle is an Assistant Professor of biology at Carthage College in Wisconsin. Her research focuses on uveal melanoma, using zebrafish as a model system, and spans molecular and cellular mechanisms of cancer progression, immunology, and even space biology. As part of our series on early-career researchers, we asked Dr. Henle to talk to us about her research and her passion for teaching undergraduate students. Dr. Henle also has some advice for young scientists pursuing an academic career, which we think is equally valuable for anyone starting out on their unique career path.

    Q&AOpen Access
  • Saunders et al. discuss the latest research and strategies used to control wheat stem rust in Western Europe following their report of its recurrence in the UK for the first time in almost 60 years. In their Comment, they hope to build on their previous work to drive innovation in disease management.

    • Diane G. O. Saunders
    • Zacharias A. Pretorius
    • Mogens S. Hovmøller
    CommentOpen Access