Method to Watch in 2009

The ability to study single cells will permit a better understanding of cellular heterogeneity.

Will some single molecule sequencing strategies be able to deliver on the promise of direct methyl cytosine sequencing?

Automated methods to score phenotypes in model organisms continue to develop and will permit previously inaccessible areas of biology to be probed.

Technology for sensitively and reproducibly detecting targeted proteins by mass spectrometry picks up speed.

Refinements in methods to uncover the higher-order structure of the genome will allow functional insight into genomic architecture at high resolution.

Will new methods and an emerging understanding of the minimal requirements for cellular life be sufficient to construct a synthetic organism?

New methods to coax signals from unlabeled biological molecules may finally fulfill the promise of practical label-free microscopy with molecular specificity.

Methodological developments are opening the functioning brain to cellular-level investigation using light.