Editorials

Correspondence in scientific journals is an essential mechanism for mediating scientific debates, but emerging online technologies offer new ways to foster scientific communication.

New tools and rigorous chemical and biological studies will be essential for enhancing our mechanistic understanding of cellular oxidative stress.

A two-day symposium on chemical neurobiology revealed an open frontier for researchers at the interface of chemistry and neuroscience.

As scientists move towards a more comprehensive understanding of the role of metals in biology, bioinorganic chemistry will be an increasingly important component of chemical biology.

The pharmaceutical industry faces major challenges in delivering the next generation of therapeutic agents. The shared interests of pharmaceutical researchers and chemical biologists provide impetus for new drug discovery innovations.

Building on its foundations in chemistry, chemical biology is now extending its reach to understand and manipulate increasingly complex biological systems.

Education is a central mission of universities. Emphasizing creative and passionate teaching by all academic staff is essential for maintaining educational quality while supporting vigorous research.

Although we are updating the formats of our original research papers, publishing top-quality chemical biology research remains our primary aim.

Understanding how organisms measure and respond to space and time at a physical and chemical level is at the heart of a mechanistic understanding of life.

Nature Chemical Biology's impact factor of 12.409 reflects the growing visibility and impact of research at the interface of chemistry and biology.

High-throughput screening has become increasingly important in academic research over the last decade. The diversity of chemical and biological space being probed by academic chemical screening, coupled with the public reporting of results, has created an important new resource of data for chemical biologists.

Natural products research focuses on the chemical properties, biosynthesis and biological functions of secondary metabolites. As our scientific understanding of all things 'natural' is rapidly expanding, we should also make time to communicate the subtleties of chemical distinctions to the public.

Nature Chemical Biology is committed to enhancing interdisciplinary communication and features online content to increase the accessibility of chemical information for our readers.

Facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration is essential for the success of chemical biology.

Scientific endeavors benefit from transparency and open declarations of real or perceived conflicts of interest.

Scientists from across the chemistry and biology communities often have divergent ideas of what constitutes mechanistic insight into a biological system. Science that forges a middle ground between these disciplines offers the best way forward for chemical biologists.

The aging of the professoriate has raised questions about how to support productive faculty members late in their careers while integrating the vitality of youthful scientists.

Two 2006 Nobel prizes reflect the central role of RNA in gene regulation and emphasize the interplay of discoveries in chemistry and biology.

Integrating chemistry and biology in the search for the next generation of therapeutics.

The difficulty in working with lipids and other membrane components has left many fundamental questions about the biochemistry of membranes unanswered. New techniques are required to determine how cell membranes are organized structurally and functionally.