In this Review, Singh et al. explore the impact of future climate scenarios on plant pathogen burden and biogeography, their interaction with the plant microbiome and the consequences on plant disease and productivity in different ecosystems. They propose different approaches to ensure long-term global food security.

In this Review, Landovitz, Scott and Deeks explore the current state of the art for HIV prevention and treatment, including unmet needs and emerging tools. They describe how researchers are combining different approaches, such as prevention, treatment and cure, to achieve better outcomes in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

In this Review, Georjon and Bernheim provide an overview of the molecular diversity of the most recently discovered bacterial antiphage defence systems and discuss their evolution and the ecological impact of their diversity.

In this Journal Club, Gonzalo Moratorio discusses a study using deep mutational scanning (DMS) to uncover how the influenza virus evades the host immune response, highlighting the potential of DMS in understanding the evolutionary arms race between pathogens and hosts.

In this Journal Club, Anja Spang discusses the discovery of nanosized archaea, transforming our knowledge of archaeal phylogeny and shedding light on their roles in ecology and evolution.

In this Journal Club, Chelsey Spriggs discusses how the study of simian virus 40 (SV40) revealed a key sequence in the large T antigen that directs its transport into the cell nucleus, advancing our understanding of nuclear import mechanics.

In this Journal Club, Edmund Loh explores the pioneering work of Kurt Nordström and colleagues, which uncovers the importance of a small RNA in plasmid replication and elucidates its mechanism of action.

Marking 20 years of Nature Reviews Microbiology, we reflect on the increasing importance of microbiology in our ever-changing world.

In this Journal Club, Lisa Maier explores Abigail Salyers’ groundbreaking research on Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, focusing on how she established a new genetic system and investigated how these gut bacteria bind and use starch, uncovering important insights into their metabolism.