Nature Methods

Category:Articles with short descriptionCategory:Short description is different from Wikidata
Nature Methods
DisciplineLife Sciences
LanguageEnglish
Edited byAllison Doerr
Publication details
History2004–present
Publisher
FrequencyMonthlyCategory:Monthly journals (infobox)
31.1 (2024)
Standard abbreviations
ISO 4Nat. Methods
Indexing
CODENNMAEA3
ISSN1548-7091 (print)
1548-7105 (web)
LCCN2004214152
OCLC no.56476033
Links

Nature Methods is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering new scientific techniques. It was established in 2004 and is published by Springer Nature under the Nature Portfolio. Like other Nature journals, there is no external editorial board and editorial decisions are made by an in-house team, although peer review by external experts forms a part of the review process.[1] The editor-in-chief is Allison Doerr.[2]

Method of the Year

Each January, Nature Methods designates a "Method of the Year" — a field, approach or technique that the editors judge to have enabled major recent advances in the life sciences. The selection is accompanied by a special issue containing an editorial, primer-style commentaries and a "News Feature" by the journal's technology editor.[3] The award has been given annually since 2007 and frequently highlights experimental and computational techniques that transform how biological data are generated or analysed.

Selections by year

Nature Methods Method of the Year, 2007–2025
YearMethodBrief descriptionEditorial reference
2007Next-generation DNA sequencingMassively parallel short-read platforms (e.g. Illumina, 454, SOLiD) that increased sequencing throughput by several orders of magnitude.[4]
2008Super-resolution microscopyFluorescence imaging techniques such as STED, PALM and STORM that surpass the optical diffraction limit.[5]
2009Induced pluripotent stem cellsReprogramming of somatic cells into a pluripotent state, enabling patient-specific disease models and regenerative medicine research.[6]
2010OptogeneticsGenetically encoded opsins that allow neural activity to be controlled with light at millisecond timescales.[7]
2011Gene-editing nucleasesProgrammable zinc-finger nucleases, TALENs and engineered meganucleases used for targeted genome editing.[8]
2012Targeted proteomicsMass-spectrometry workflows such as selected reaction monitoring (SRM/MRM) that quantify pre-defined sets of proteins with high reproducibility.[9]
2013Single-cell sequencingGenomic, transcriptomic and epigenomic profiling at the resolution of individual cells.[10]
2014Light sheet fluorescence microscopyPlane-illumination microscopy that enables high-speed, low-phototoxicity 3D imaging of living embryos and tissues.[11]
2015Cryo-electron microscopySingle-particle cryo-EM, enabled by direct electron detectors and improved software, achieving near-atomic resolution structures of biomolecules in solution.[12]
2016Epitranscriptome analysisSequencing-based profiling of chemical modifications on RNA, such as m6A, pseudouridine and inosine.[13]
2017OrganoidsThree-dimensional self-organising tissue cultures derived from stem cells.[14]
2018Imaging in freely behaving animalsMiniaturised head-mounted microscopes and animal-tracking imaging systems for recording neuronal activity during natural behaviours in unrestrained model organisms.[15]
2019Single-cell multimodal omicsJoint measurement of multiple molecular layers (e.g. genome+transcriptome, transcriptome+chromatin) within the same single cell.[16]
2020Spatially resolved transcriptomicsSequencing- and imaging-based methods that locate gene-expression measurements within intact tissue sections.[17]
2021Protein structure predictionDeep-learning systems such as AlphaFold 2 and RoseTTAFold that predict protein 3D structure from sequence at near-experimental accuracy.[18]
2022Long-read sequencingSingle-molecule platforms from PacBio and Oxford Nanopore producing reads of tens of kilobases, enabling high-quality genome assemblies and detection of structural variants and DNA modifications.[19]
2023Stem-cell-based embryo modelsSelf-organising 3D cultures derived from pluripotent stem cells that recapitulate aspects of mammalian embryogenesis.[20]
2024Spatial proteomicsImaging and mass-spectrometry approaches that map proteins and post-translational modifications across intact tissues at sub-cellular resolution.[21]
2025Electron-microscopy-based connectomicsVolume electron microscopy combined with AI-assisted reconstruction to map synaptic-resolution wiring diagrams of nervous systems, including whole-brain connectomes of model organisms such as Drosophila.[22]

According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal had a 2021 impact factor of 47.990, ranking it first in the category "Biochemical Research Methods".[23]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "For Authors : Nature Methods". nature.com. Retrieved 2013-04-14.
  2. ↑ "About the Editors". nature.com. Springer Nature. Retrieved 2023-04-04.
  3. ↑ "Method of the Year". Nature Methods. 5 (1): 1. 2008. doi:10.1038/nmeth1153. PMID 18175409.
  4. ↑ "Method of the Year". Nature Methods. 5 (1): 1. 2008. doi:10.1038/nmeth1153. PMID 18175409.
  5. ↑ "Method of the Year 2008". Nature Methods. 6 (1): 1. 2009. doi:10.1038/nmeth.f.244.
  6. ↑ "Method of the Year 2009". Nature Methods. 7 (1): 1. 2010. doi:10.1038/nmeth.f.294.
  7. ↑ "Method of the Year 2010". Nature Methods. 8 (1): 1. 2011. doi:10.1038/nmeth.f.321.
  8. ↑ "Method of the Year 2011". Nature Methods. 9 (1): 1. 2012. doi:10.1038/nmeth.1852.
  9. ↑ "Method of the Year 2012". Nature Methods. 10 (1): 1. 2013. doi:10.1038/nmeth.2329.
  10. ↑ "Method of the Year 2013". Nature Methods. 11 (1): 1. 2014. doi:10.1038/nmeth.2801. PMID 24524124.
  11. ↑ "Method of the Year 2014". Nature Methods. 12 (1): 1. 2015. doi:10.1038/nmeth.3251. PMID 25699311.
  12. ↑ "Method of the Year 2015". Nature Methods. 13 (1): 1. 2016. doi:10.1038/nmeth.3730.
  13. ↑ "Method of the Year 2016: Epitranscriptome analysis". Nature Methods. 14 (1): 1. 2017. doi:10.1038/nmeth.4142.
  14. ↑ "Method of the Year 2017: Organoids". Nature Methods. 15 (1): 1. 2018. doi:10.1038/nmeth.4575.
  15. ↑ "Method of the Year 2018: Imaging in freely behaving animals". Nature Methods. 16 (1): 1. 2019. doi:10.1038/s41592-018-0292-8.
  16. ↑ "Method of the Year 2019: Single-cell multimodal omics". Nature Methods. 17 (1): 1. 2020. doi:10.1038/s41592-019-0703-5.
  17. ↑ Marx, Vivien (2021). "Method of the Year: spatially resolved transcriptomics". Nature Methods. 18 (1): 9–14. doi:10.1038/s41592-020-01033-y. PMID 33408395.
  18. ↑ "Method of the Year 2021: Protein structure prediction". Nature Methods. 19 (1): 1. 2022. doi:10.1038/s41592-021-01380-4.
  19. ↑ Marx, Vivien (2023). "Method of the year: long-read sequencing". Nature Methods. 20 (1): 6–11. doi:10.1038/s41592-022-01730-w. PMID 36635542.
  20. ↑ "Method of the Year 2023: methods for modeling development". Nature Methods. 21 (1): 1. 2024. doi:10.1038/s41592-023-02134-0.
  21. ↑ "Method of the Year 2024: spatial proteomics". Nature Methods. 22 (1): 1. 2025. doi:10.1038/s41592-024-02565-3.
  22. ↑ "Method of the Year 2025: electron microscopy-based connectomics". Nature Methods. 23 (1): 1. 2026. doi:10.1038/s41592-025-02988-6.
  23. ↑ "Journals Ranked by Impact: Biochemical Research Methods". 2021 Journal Citation Reports. Web of Science (Science ed.). Clarivate. 2022.
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