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Publishing reviews and commentaries across the fields of genetics and genomics. Part of Springer Nature and Nature Portfolio. https://www.nature.com/nrg/

How to do science that matters: Computational biologist @casey.greenelab.com on purpose-driven open science practices Read the interview here: go.nature.com/4uWAQoe

Synthetic biology approaches for studying the segmentation clock #Figure from our Review "Progress in understanding the vertebrate segmentation clock" by Akihiro Isomura & Ryoichiro Kageyama rdcu.be/fnyV0

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00977-9In this Journal Club, Chatterjee and Rodger highlight two studies by Guo et al. and Shen et al. that demonstrated how genome-wide DNA methylation profiling enables sensitive detection and classification of tumour-derived cell-free DNA, advancing epigenetic approaches in liquid biopsy for cancer diagnostics.

Open science, altruism and impact: An interview with clinical geneticist @zornitza.bsky.social Read the interview here: go.nature.com/4aJsp7B

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 11 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00979-7Plants must accurately time flowering by integrating seasonal temperature cues to ensure reproductive success. This Review describes how two mechanisms — rapid transcriptional responses and long-term epigenetic memory — work together in parallel to robustly control flowering time, and it highlights that variation in these processes provides important information for the future of crops under a changing climate.

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 27 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00943-5In this Review, Rodriguez-Fraticelli and Parreno discuss advances in single-cell lineage-tracing methods and how their application to diverse biological processes, such as development, ageing and cancer, is challenging prevailing views and providing new insights.

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 20 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00970-2In this Tools of the Trade article, Yueyuan Xu and Xiaolin Wei discuss scHiCAR (single-cell Hi-C with assay for transposase-accessible chromatin and RNA sequencing), a trimodal single-cell method for simultaneously profiling gene expression, chromatin accessibility and 3D genome organization.

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 20 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00968-wIn this Perspective, Ramstein and colleagues discuss the use of emerging machine learning tools for function-informed prioritization of variants for plant breeding; they outline future applications in which precision breeding strategies have the potential to be most effective.

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 19 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00973-zIn this Journal Club, Mary Gehring recalls a 1970 paper from Jerry Kermicle, which used elegant maize genetics to show that alleles behave differently depending on parental origin, laying the conceptual foundation for gene imprinting.

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 19 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00976-wRed Queen dynamics describe a mode of evolution in which interacting biological entities continually adapt and counteradapt. This Comment discusses the pervasiveness of these dynamics within genomes, which can involve selfish genetic elements, and highlights building evidence that they can even drive compensatory coevolution among subunits of essential protein complexes.