Remote. Pristine. Unyielding. Antarctica was once all three; now it is none. Humanity ravaged Antarctica’s marine ecosystems and now tempts catastrophic sea-level rise.

New advances in harnessing the body’s ability to regenerate as well as how tuneable biomaterials will generate new treatments for a large range of diseases are discussed.

This year’s ‘Frontiers in biology’ Insight features Reviews on the development of mature blood cells from haematopoietic stem cells, interactions between skin microorganisms and their host and how these contribute to health and disease, recent developments in three-dimensional brain tissue culture systems, and the biology of non-small cell lung cancer and recent advances in its treatment.

The advent of fully fledged, universal quantum computers will signify a radical departure from current, silicon-based computing. This Insight looks at several aspects of future quantum computing, including programming languages and compilers for quantum software, fault-tolerant quantum computation, quantum machine-learning algorithms and post-quantum cryptography. Ways of comparing the power of classical and quantum computers and of achieving quantum supremacy are also discussed.

The tremendous diversity of life on Earth is facing an uncertain future. This Insight looks at the origins of this biodiversity, how it supports the ecosystem goods and services on which people depend, and how rapid increases in the human population are putting it to the test. Strategies to protect biodiversity are also explored.

Plants are a valuable source of nutrition, fuel and building materials, but their sessile nature makes them vulnerable to the environment and pathogens. This Insight highlights pertinent issues in plant research, including signalling in plant immunity, plant interactions with the environment, progress in agricultural genomics and harnessing the quantum properties of photosynthesis for human-made energy conversion systems.

This year’s ‘Frontiers in biology’ Insight features Reviews on how genomics is helping to uncover the peopling of the world, the interplay between morphogens and morphogenesis in determining organismal shape, the factors that influence the immune response to cancer, advances in single-cell genomics, and the effects of base modifications in messenger RNA.

The mechanical properties of man-made polymeric materials have been optimized for their use in all kinds of products for decades. This Insight explores polymer research that focuses on developing materials with more advanced features. The aim is to deliver longer-lasting and more-sustainable polymers, next-generation materials for biomedical research and therapeutic applications, and materials that will further revolutionize 3D printing.

The prevalence of neurodegenerative disorders is increasing, partly owing to extensions in lifespan, but effective treatments are still lacking. This Insight explores brain ageing and possible rejuvenation and updates our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. It also reveals how knowledge from prion disease may apply to more common neurodegenerative disorders and provides a structural perspective on the properties of amyloids.

Knowledge of how proteins fold and catalyse an extraordinary range of chemical transformations has grown over the past century. Yet many regions of the protein world remain uncharted. This Insight highlights four exciting topics in contemporary protein science: de novo designed proteins; how cells monitor and regulate the proteome; the rise of cryo-electron microscopy; and proteome analysis through high-resolution mass spectrometry.

The intestinal microbiota is associated closely with health and disease. This Insight explores human developmental biology from a microbial perspective; the influence of diet and the microbiota on metabolism; the microbiota and innate immunity; the microbiota and adaptive immunity; how the microbiota and pathogenic bacteria interact in the gut; and the promise of microbiome-wide association studies for precision medicine.

This year’s ‘Frontiers in biology’ Insight features Reviews on the processes that underlie metastasis, the positive influence of inflammation on tissue repair, the role of endothelial cells in organ development, growth and regeneration, the endoplasmic reticulum stress response and its contribution to disease, and antibiotic resistance.