News & Views in 2011

A transposon-insertion method can trap and mutate genes while simultaneously revealing their spatiotemporal expression pattern, all in a conditional manner in the live, transparent zebrafish.

With vast increases in biological data generation, mechanisms for data storage and analysis have become limiting. A data structure, semantically typed data hypercubes (SDCubes), that combines hierarchical data format version 5 (HDF5) and extensible markup language (XML) file formats, now permits the flexible storage, annotation and retrieval of large and heterogenous datasets.

Improved methods for human pluripotent stem cell culture and for reprogramming of human somatic cells to pluripotency may bring us closer to the routine generation of personalized pluripotent stem cells.

A parallel microfluidic cytometer combines low-pixel-count, one-dimensional images with parallel-channel flow cytometry for high-speed, high-throughput screening of cells.

A technique to substantially increase the resolution and imaging area of Fourier-transform infrared microspectroscopy, while decreasing the amount of time required for image acquisition, may augment the use of this technology in biomedical and environmental research.

A wearable imaging device allows functional whole-brain imaging of awake, freely moving rats. This technology opens up a noninvasive window for simultaneously assessing brain function and behavior in response to a wide variety of interventions in living rats.

Pairwise quantitative genetic interactions are mapped by combinatorial RNA interference in metazoan cells.

Two fluorescence microscopy techniques provide alternative routes to obtaining three-dimensional super-resolution images with greater axial depth.

Three single-molecule methods promise to increase the time resolution of experiments, to allow better access to sparsely populated molecular states and to permit combinatorial high-throughput analysis.

Brainbow is a powerful genetic tool for multicolor labeling in mice with applications in fields including developmental biology and neuroanatomy. Now two groups have ported the approach to the fruit fly where it may have even greater impact.

Detection of cellular PtdIns(3,4,5)P₃ by combination of chemical derivatization and tandem mass spectroscopy has been demonstrated.

Two systems allow precise optogenetic stimulation of specific neurons in freely behaving nematodes.

Combining rule-based descriptions of biochemical reactions with agent-based computer simulation opens new avenues for exploring complex cellular processes.

Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy is used to directly visualize lipids in cells and model organisms, and facilitates screening for genes involved in fat storage.