Because of the importance of technical advances across subdisciplines, Nature Cell Biology has recently introduced a new section, comprising Technology Review articles, which has so far included reviews of in vivo electroporation and double-stranded RNA interference (RNAi). This section is dedicated to reviewing technological advances that have already contributed to an increasing understanding of many fields of cell biology, and are expected to continue to do so. These articles provide sufficient technical details to allow a deeper understanding of the techniques described, and give insight into current and possible future applications. We will continue to keep our readers abreast of new technological advances, and future Technology Reviews will cover a wide range of topics, including quantitative GFP technology.