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In 2004, Nature Medicine enters its tenth year of publication, continuing our mission to serve the biomedical research community as the venue for top-flight primary research articles, news and perspectives. The cover image commemorates our anniversary year with a collage of covers spanning our publication history. (Graphic by Lewis Long)
How do you top solving a century-old riddle in developmental neurobiology? By moving to a company with no commercial interest in neuroscience. For someone as ambitious as Marc Tessier-Lavigne, leaving academia for the biotech giant Genentech could be the right choice.
A new theory about the development of autoimmunity has emerged from a surprising and disparate set of observations. The elements include antibodies that recognize antibodies, and a peculiar structural relationship between a sense- and antisense-encoded protein (pages 72–79).
Endogenous marijuana-like compounds regulate implantation during pregnancy by activating cannabinoid receptors on the embryo's surface. A new study explores the dynamics of this process and renews concerns about marijuana use in pregnant women.
HTLV-1 infection poses a risk for leukemia and other ailments. Now the elusive cellular receptor for this pathogen has finally been identified, and it is the same receptor that allows glucose to enter cells.
T-cell depletion is commonly used in strategies that attempt to coax the immune system into tolerating foreign tissue after transplantation. Studies in mice now indicate that this depletion may be at odds with the goal of inducing tolerance (pages 87–92).
A new drug that activates the Wnt pathway maintains the undifferentiated state of pluripotent human and mouse embryonic stem cells. This finding opens the door to defining the precise molecular mechanism of embryonic stem cell self-renewal, which is crucial for providing a steady supply of embryonic stem cells for regenerative medicine (pages 55–63).
Short bursts of hypoxia induce a form of learning in the neuronal network that controls breathing. This process now is shown to share mechanisms with synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus.
Almost all prostate cancer patients become resistant to therapy that blocks androgen-mediated cell proliferation. The key to this resistance may lie in expression of the androgen receptor itself (pages 33–39).