News & Comment

Some graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and senior researchers choose a special kind of science-focused summer.

Scientists track how these membraneless biomolecular foci self-organize for their cellular tasks.

As a vast and diverse country, Brazil faces significant regional disparities that highlight the urgent need to democratize access to scientific resources and opportunities. To help develop solutions to address this challenge, we launched the Bioimaging Brasil initiative, aimed at expanding access to advanced bioimaging techniques such as intravital microscopy. By leveraging a broad spectrum of technologies — from standard microscopes paired with cell phone cameras to cutting-edge laser scanning confocal microscopes — the initiative fosters collaboration, strengthens research capacity and serves as a global model for equitable technology dissemination.

Beginning this month, Nature Methods is rolling out a new project aimed at strengthening peer review: a formal co-reviewing initiative to recognize early-career researcher contributions. We also discuss our introduction of a reporting checklist to improve the transparency and reproducibility of light microscopy studies.

Expansion-microscopy-based connectomics allows the study of neuronal networks with a resolution approaching that of EM-based connectomics while also providing access to molecular information.

A steadily growing toolbox of techniques is helping researchers to understand the structural complexity that enables RNA molecules to perform a dizzying array of functions in the cell.

Scientists face many pressures, plenty of which are about identity. Researchers draw strength from within and from allies.

Vibrational microscopy methods offer bond-selective imaging, revealing the rich chemical composition of biological samples. In this Focus issue, we celebrate the past, present and future of these technologies, with an emphasis on how they are poised to enhance discovery in the life sciences.

Advances in cellular physiology research have created the need to visualize metabolic processes in both time and space. Vibrational microscopy has emerged as a promising method at the forefront of this field. Here, we summarize recent progress and offer perspectives on the application of vibrational microscopy for uncovering metabolic actions in vivo.

Raman microscopy enables label-free, high-resolution molecular imaging, treating the entire Raman spectrum as a phenotype for profiling cell heterogeneity. While challenges remain in speed, sensitivity and resolution, advancements in coherent Raman scattering, spatial multiplexing and Raman probe techniques continue to expand its potential for characterizing complex biological systems and fostering exploratory and data-driven biology.

Vibrational microscopy opens a new window onto understanding life at the molecular level. Yet the vibrational signals from chemical bonds are weaker than the fluorescence signal from a dye by many orders of magnitude. Detecting such weak signal from a tight focus under a microscope is extremely challenging. I have devoted my career to overcoming such a daunting barrier through the development of advanced chemical microscopes over the past 25 years. In this historical Comment, I am honored to share my journey of serendipity-driven innovation and entrepreneurship in the growing field of chemical imaging, with a focus on the invention of vibrational photothermal microscopy.