Translational research as a new strategy promotes the integration of life science and clinical research, by which important scientific questions are derived from clinical phenomena and dissected with modern biological approaches, and the results are in turn applied to clinical practice. Journal of Molecular Cell Biology constantly focuses on the progress in translational research and has published many articles as well as a collection (Wu, 2013) on this topic. This issue includes several latest studies that may provide new views and tools for exploring complex diseases such as chronic kidney disease, liver disease, and cancer.