The January 1st 2012 issue of the Biochemical Journal features three articles by Programme Leaders in the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit, which run consecutively from pages 325 – 357 of Volume 441 of the journal. In the first article Dario Alessi's lab report advances in understanding how the protein kinases SPAK and OSR1 regulate the sodium/potassium co-transporter 1 and the protein kinase WNK to regulate blood pressure (Thastrup et al, BJ, 441: 325-337), while in the second Philip Cohen's lab report that the E3 ubiquitin ligase Pellino 1 is activated by two different protein kinases in response to two different inflammatory stimuli (Goh et al, BJ, 441: 339-346). In the third paper, Simon Arthur's lab characterise the cellular actions of a a new pharmacological inhibitor of the Mitogen and Stress-activated Kinases (MSKs) (Naqvi et al, BJ, 441: 347-357).