Stem cells are well on their way into the clinic and can be used in a variety of applications, such as disease modelling, drug screening and for regenerative medicine. This collection showcases research articles, reviews and protocols from across the Nature journals to highlight the striking advances made in basic and translational stem cell research.

Nature Milestones in Antibodies, presented by Nature Immunology, Nature Reviews Immunology, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and Nature Communications, highlights some of the most influential developments in the history of antibody research.

In this collection, the cancer editorial community of the Nature journals presents the most recently published articles on cancer evolution. The topic is discussed from different angles (preclinical, translational and clinical), and across a range of tumour types.

A clearer understanding of the biological underpinnings of cancer origins might help us design more effective cancer prevention methods or improve early detection of tumours that are likely to become malignant. Furthermore, delineating the cell of origin of a specific tumour and the evolutionary changes that underlie its development should also improve our ability to effectively treat that tumour. All of these goals will be aided by increased knowledge of the early pre-neoplastic changes in cells that have the capacity to become tumorigenic, determining the cells of origin of different cancer types, and understanding the interactions of pre-neoplastic or tumour cells with each other as well as with the supporting microenvironment. This series of articles takes a look at recent progress in the diverse fields that have provided insights into this intriguing problem in cancer biology.

A web focus from Cell Death & Differentiation, Cell Death & Disease, Nature Reviews Cancer, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology and Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. We hope you enjoy this focus including work from the world's most recognized experts in the field of autophagy.

Clinical studies can teach us a great deal about the processes and mechanisms underlying cancer, and they also remind us of aspects of cancer that we still do not understand. For example, why patients with metastatic special neuroblastoma undergo spontaneous tumour regression; why some rare types of cancer are metaplastic; and why some patients are exceptional responders to chemotherapy. In recognition of these types of informative findings from the clinic that are often overlooked by laboratory-based cancer researchers, we have commissioned a series of Clinical insights Comment articles. Thinking more broadly about these more unusual aspects of cancer might help us overcome some of the current stumbling blocks in cancer research.

This joint Focus issue from Nature Reviews CancerandNature Reviews Immunologyfeatures specially commissioned articles that discuss the promise of immunotherapy to treat cancer and how key immune cells function in the tumour microenvironment.

A renaissance in the field of cancer metabolism, enabled by methodological advances and better molecular understanding of metabolic pathways, has demonstrated close links between the oncogenic pathways that drive tumorigenesis and the mechanistic basis of tumour cell metabolism. This collection showcases recent progress in the field, highlighting the promise of new therapeutics based on interfering with metabolic pathways.

Cancer research has diversified as our understanding of the complexity of this disease has expanded. Thus, it is difficult to cover in one article where progress is likely to come in the next 10 years based on what we have learnt recently. To address this, we have commissioned a special series of articles that focus either on the hottest areas currently in cancer research, such as epigenetics, heterogeneity and metastasis, or on forward looking concepts that may or may not result in new treatments for cancer patients. We hope that all of these articles will serve as food for thought on the future of cancer research.

Genomic instability is often associated with cancer and can be indicative of a poor prognosis for some types of cancer. But, is genomic instability a consequence of tumour progression or an active process that drives tumour evolution? The answer to this question has still not been entirely resolved. Many new findings have highlighted certain DNA repair pathways and cell cycle control processes that have important consequences for genomic stability and tumour cell biology. Indeed, there are numerous efforts to manipulate the DNA damage responses to selectively induce tumour cell death through catastrophic genomic instability, and some are already showing promise. Of course, radiotherapy and other existing chemotherapeutic agents should not be overlooked as therapeutic strategies by which DNA damage induces tumour cell death and there are various efforts to improve the response to radiotherapy and to understand responses (and resistance) to current cytotoxic chemotherapeutics. This series takes a look at the progress made in this field and the questions that remain about the role of genomic instability in cancer.

This Focus issue of specially-commissioned articles reflects the recent insights gained from proteomics in understanding the molecular biology of cancer, and the future promise of applying proteomics to the clinic.