Editorials

In January 2024, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (NSMB) will celebrate the 30^th anniversary of publishing its first issue. Though initially launched as Nature Structural Biology in 1994, the journal has since expanded its scope to include all research into the molecular underpinnings of life, with the vision that the broadest insight can be gleaned through a suite of complementary approaches.

Understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms of dosage compensation and how cells equalize gene expression from the sex chromosomes has interested scientists for more than six decades. However, with so many questions still unanswered, the field continues to capture the attention of researchers.

As 2021 comes to an end, we take this opportunity to look back through the pages of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and consider some of the year’s highlights.

In the last year and a half, our lives have changed dramatically. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology has also changed. Here we share some of the positive changes that we are embracing.

We celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Protein Data Bank together with our colleagues at Nature Methods with a special collection that showcases key achievements in structural biology and views of its future.

Rapid progress is being made in our understanding of RNA–protein interactions, their role in disease and their influence on the action of oligonucleotide drugs.

Initiatives to promote transparency in our peer-review process and reproducibility start to take off.

The scientific community is facing challenges due to the pandemic, and we pledge our support.

Chromatin-associated proteins are emerging as new drug targets for a variety of diseases, especially cancer. This special Focus issue highlights various approaches for ‘targeting chromatin’ for therapeutic intervention.

The biochemical identification of three nuclear RNA polymerases fundamentally altered our understanding of gene regulation.

On 15 July 2019, the Governor of the Bank of England announced that English mathematician, computer scientist and cryptanalyst Alan Turing will be the new face of the £50 note.

We pay tribute to an extraordinary structural biologist who was also an early advocate for data sharing.

We launch a Series on Synaptic Processes, featuring commissioned Reviews and opinion pieces that discuss the expanding molecular understanding of how neural cells communicate.

This January 2018 issue starts the 25th year of NSMB’s journey. We mark the occasion by launching a special series that celebrates the exciting research uncovering the fundamental principles behind biological processes.

Nature research journals announce new reporting summaries to promote transparency, and our editors welcome early-career researchers to the Springer Nature office in New York to discuss careers in scientific publishing.

Daily rhythms are a constant part of life. This special Focus issue explores the molecular mechanisms that underlie the generation of circadian dynamics.

Here, we announce two policy changes across Nature journals: data-availability statements in all published papers and official Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) validation reports for peer review.

In a common yet effective analogy, a cell can be compared to a fortified city, in which lipid membranes form the defensive walls, and membrane proteins function as gates and checkpoints that control the transit of molecules and information across these walls. We evoke this concept on the cover of this special Focus on Membrane Proteins.

Deciphering the complexity of events at telomeres has enhanced understanding of how telomeres function to maintain genome integrity and how their dysfunction gives rise to human disease.

Sharing source data—the actual measurements and unprocessed images behind the graphical representations used in figures—helps to ensure transparency and reproducibility of research results. We urge our authors to submit and share the source data with their published papers.