In our August issue, we join in the celebration of the International Year of Chemistry with a special feature, including an Editorial that highlights some of the most important contributions of chemistry to method and tool development for biology research, a Technology Feature on protein engineering, a Historical Commentary on the history of mass spectrometry, a Commentary on bioorthogonal chemistry, another Commentary on small-molecule fluorescent probes, and finally, a selection of Chemistry Methods papers published in past issues of Nature Methods.

It is clear that many important insights in biology research would not have been possible without the use of methods and tools developed originally by chemists. Even today, the expertise of chemists continues to be necessary for making new discoveries and advancements in the biological sciences.

Please feel free to share your thoughts about the impact of chemistry, of methods and tools in particular, on biology research!