This Review discusses established and emerging techniques for the multiplexed imaging of isolated tissues and cells and for non-invasive whole-body imaging.

This Perspective overviews the design and fabrication of tissue-mimicking phantom materials for the technical validation of biophotonic instrumentation, and identifies a set of criteria for their standardization.

This Perspective highlights notable milestones from the past two decades of research in cardiac tissue engineering, and outlines opportunities and challenges for further advancement.

Ultrasound pulses have been used to modulate a liver–brain autonomic nerve pathway to prevent or reverse the onset of hyperglycaemia in models of diabetes in several species. The ion channel TRPA1 was shown to be essential in transducing the ultrasound stimuli within the metabolic control circuit.

An inhalable virus-like-particle consisting of exosomes decorated with a recombinant SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain is stable at room temperature and elicits systemic and mucosal immune responses in small animals.

A polymer patch that rapidly and robustly adheres to diabetic wounds and contracts in a pre-programmed manner promotes wound closure and re-epithelialization, as shown in mouse and human skin, in mini-pigs and in humanized mice.

A human intestine-on-a-chip lined by intestinal epithelium derived from patients with environmental enteric dysfunction and cultured in nutrient-deficient medium recapitulates essential features of intestinal dysfunction associated with the disease.

Screening a large barcoded library of unique CD19-specific chimaeric antigen receptors with diverse intracellular domains allows for the discovery of receptors that elicit enhanced antitumoural functions.

Synthetically generated and clonally expanded libraries of immune cells displaying diverse repertoires of chimaeric antigen receptors lead to long-lasting and potent antitumour responses in mouse models of epithelial tumours.

SARS-CoV-2 and its variants can be visually detected via easy-to-use Cas13-based nucleic acid tests leveraging lyophilised reagents and fast sample inactivation at ambient temperature.

Rejections are unwelcome. We seek to make them easier to understand.

By allowing for the visualization of living tissue faster, at higher contrast or with larger fields of view, imaging modalities widely used in research are making inroads into the detection of disease in the human body.

Better cell sourcing and increasingly fine control over cell differentiation, tissue formation and cell and tissue maturation are pushing forward progress in disease modelling, drug development and regenerative medicine.

Lessons being learned about the utility of COVID-19 diagnostics are informing the design, required real-world performance and deployment needs of technologies for the detection of infectious diseases.

Deliberate practice will, however, get you further.

The growth of citations to published content typically follows an S-shaped curve. We look back at the fairly homogeneous citation-growth patterns — and at the few exceptions to them — for the content that we published in 2017.