Engaging new audiences with imaging and microscopy.

In this Spotlight, we hear first-hand accounts from five scientists and educators who use microscopy and imaging to engage, entertain, educate and inspire new audiences with science and the field of developmental biology in particular. The 'voices' that follow each convey each authors' own personal take on why microscopy is such a powerful tool for capturing the minds, and the hearts, of scientists, students and the public alike. They discuss how microscopy and imaging can reveal new worlds, and improve our communication and understanding of developmental biology, as well as break down barriers and promote diversity for future generations of scientific researchers.

The people behind the papers - Masaki Kinoshita, Toshihiro Kobayashi, Hiroshi Nagashima, Ramiro Alberio and Austin Smith.

The ability to derive and maintain pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) from livestock species in defined media conditions will contribute to many new research avenues, including comparative embryology and xenotransplantation. In a new paper in Development, Masaki Kinoshita, Toshihiro Kobayashi, Hiroshi Nagashima, Ramiro Alberio, Austin Smith and colleagues describe their three-component medium, which supports long-term propagation of PSCs in the absence of feeders or serum factors. We caught up with the authors to find out more about their research and their future plans.

What is in the black box? The discovery of the sigma factor and the subunit structure of E. coli RNA polymerase.

This Reflections article is focused on the 5 years while I was a graduate student (1964-1969). During this period, I made some of the most significant discoveries of my career. I have written this article primarily for a protein biochemistry audience, my colleagues who shared this exciting time in science, and the many scientists over the last 50 years who have contributed to our knowledge of transcriptional machinery and their regulation. It is also written for today's graduate students, postdocs, and scientists who may not know much about the discoveries and technical advances that are now taken for granted, to show that even with methods primitive by today's standards, we were still able to make foundational advances. I also hope to provide a glimpse into how fortunate I was to be a graduate student over 50 years ago in the golden age of molecular biology.

Meet the authors: Grazia Pellicanò and Rodrigo Bermejo.

We talk to first and last authors of "Checkpoint-mediated DNA polymerase ε exonuclease activity curbing counteracts resection-driven fork collapse," Grazia Pellicanò and Rodrigo Bermejo, about their paper in this issue of Molecular Cell, the critical role of their collaborators, and the research in the Bermejo lab based in Madrid.

Down but far from out: The durability of SARS-CoV-2 immunity after asymptomatic infection.

The dynamics of immune responses in asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2-infected subjects remain to be fully characterized. The work presented in this issue of JEM by Le Bert et al. (2021. J. Exp. Med.https://doi.org/10.1084/jem.20202617) sheds some light on these issues and ultimately provides some degree of confidence in the magnitude and persistence of immunity over time after asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Meet the authors: Max E. Wilkinson, Sebastian M. Fica, and Wojciech P. Galej.

We talk to the authors of "Structural basis for conformational equilibrium of the catalytic spliceosome" about their paper, advances in cryo-EM that made it possible, and the influence of their late mentor Kiyoshi Nagai, to whom the paper is dedicated.