Purinergic Signalling is a new journal launched in response to rapidly growing interest in purinergic signalling, with its exceptionally wide spectrum of signalling functions in health and disease. Coverage includes original articles, reviews, hot topics and controversies, and meeting reports. There is both short-term purinergic signalling in transmission and secretion and long-term (trophic) signalling in controlling cell proliferation, differentiation, motility and death in development and regeneration and there is increasing interest in the roles of purines and pyrimidines in pathophysiological conditions and their therapeutic potential in disease. At the molecular level, rapid progress has been made in understanding the mechanisms of nucleotide and nucleoside release, their extracellular metabolism, the intracellular signalling cascades elicited by receptor activation and the cross-talk with other essential signalling pathways.