Editorials in 2022

As 2022 draws to a close, we highlight some of our favorite papers that we published this year in Nature Methods.

This month we continue our yearly celebration of the beauty of imaging.

Research interest in noncoding RNAs and their biological implications in a variety of cellular contexts has been growing. In this issue, we present a series of pieces discussing recent method advances and future directions for deciphering the regulatory roles of noncoding RNAs.

As pandemic restrictions ease and we at Nature Methods begin to travel again, we muse about the highs and lows of in-person and virtual meetings and imagine the future of scientific conferences.

In this issue, we are delighted to launch a new regular feature: the Creature Column.

We explain what our editorial team looks for when considering a methods paper for publication.

Nature Methods is pleased to publish several papers presenting methods developed by members of the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium, which facilitated the generation and analysis of the first complete human genome.

It’s been a busy start to 2022 in the editorial offices of Nature Methods. We summarize several developments here: new content types, editorial initiatives, travel and outreach, and recent Focus issues.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of methodological advancements in basic biological research. We believe that method development will continue to propel both fundamental and applied studies on SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens.

Highly multiplexed tissue imaging continues to show its power for biomedical discovery. In this issue, we publish tools and guidance for implementing this class of methods and reporting subsequent results.

Nature Methods is introducing a new article format: Registered Reports. We encourage all authors interested in submitting comparative analyses of the performance of established, related tools or methods to familiarize themselves with this alternative approach to peer review.

Deep Learning based approaches for protein structure prediction have sent shock waves through the structural biology community. We anticipate far-reaching and long-lasting impact.