Book excerpt: Ribonucleic acid (RNA) binding proteins currently number in the thousands and defects in their function are at the heart of diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration. RNA binding proteins have become implicated in the intricate control of surprisingly diverse biological settings, such as circadian rhythm, stem cell self-renewal, oncogenesis and germ cell development. This book surveys a range of genome-wide and systems approaches to studying RNA binding proteins, the importance of RNA binding proteins in development, cancer and circadian rhythm.