News & Comment

The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is a community resource. But how do we define community, and how has it changed over the last 50 years since the PDB was founded? How did the community influence the evolution of the PDB, and how did the PDB influence both the science and the behavior of the community?

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.

How can structural biology help us understand and combat SARS-CoV-2? Researchers in the field share their experiences and opinions and point to the challenges that lie ahead.

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.

A symposium to remember the life of Raj Rajashankar and to highlight the many scientific achievements to which he contributed was also an occasion to reflect on the fundamental role of personal interactions in the research enterprise.

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.

Misregulation of gene cohorts, which is caused by aberrant chromatin features and is observed in various cancers, has spurred the development and use of epigenetic anti-cancer drugs. Here, we argue that, in addition to small-molecule inhibitors that target chromatin regulators, synthetic reader-effectors that are recruited to abnormal chromatin features have the potential to correct gene misregulation in epigenetic therapy.

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.

Researchers working on synaptic vesicle fusion and neurotransmitter release share their views on the most interesting developments in their field and the challenges that lie ahead.

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

The long non-coding RNA Xist induces heterochromatinization of the X chromosome by recruiting repressive protein complexes to chromatin. Here we gather evidence, from the literature and from computational analyses, showing that Xist assemblies are similar in size, shape and composition to phase-separated condensates, such as paraspeckles and stress granules. Given the progressive sequestration of Xist’s binding partners during X-chromosome inactivation, we formulate the hypothesis that Xist uses phase separation to perform its function.