The global epidemic of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and its complications is a major threat to public health. This Review provides an updated view of the global epidemiology of T2DM and the dietary, lifestyle and other risk factors for T2DM and its complications.

To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the publication of An Essay on the Shaking Palsy by James Parkinson, Goedert and Compston explore the origins of the eponym 'Parkinson's disease'. Although Jean-Martin Charcot is often credited with introducing the name in the 1880s, it can actually be traced back to an 1865 publication by William Rutherford Sanders.

Field cancerization underlies the development of many types of cancer. This Review examines the biological mechanisms that drive the evolution of cancerized fields and discusses how measuring field evolution could improve cancer risk prediction in patients with pre-malignant disease.

An analysis of biotech and pharma stock prices since 1930 reveals sharp differences in the risk-adjusted returns of the two sectors.

In this Review, a group of experts in fragile X syndrome analyses why the considerable drug development effort based on robust preclinical findings describing the mechanisms underlying this neurodevelopmental disorder has failed to translate into effective treatment and offers possible solutions to improve clinical trial design and therapeutic approaches.

The contribution of genomics to drug discovery and development so far has not yet lived up to the initial high expectations. Goldstein and colleagues discuss the reasons for the limited progress and review how recent advances — particularly in oncology and rare genetic diseases — may enable precision medicine strategies to harness the therapeutic potential of genomic knowledge.