[1] The database contains information about the molecular interactions and reactions that take place in cells, with a particular focus on processes that might be relevant to cancer research and treatment.

The database was established as collaboration between the U.S. National Cancer Institute, NIH and Nature Publishing Group in 2005 and was launched in November 2006.

As of November 2007, the database contained 59 pathways (comprising 3309 molecular interactions) curated by the NCI-Nature editorial team.

The NCI-Nature curated data is gathered from published research literature and reviewed by expert scientists before publication.

Pathways and dynamically generated networks are displayed in GIF and SVG images and can be downloaded as XML (including the standard pathway interchange format, BioPAX).