On behalf of the new team of editors of the American Journal of Physiology Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology (who began July 2009), I’d like to send best wishes for the new year to our readers, editors, and reviewers. We send thanks to Chip Montrose and to all members of the previous editorial team for their outstanding contributions and service to the journal.
The current Associate Editors include:
Senior Associate Editor:
Rodger Liddle, M.D. of the Duke University Medical Center Division of Gastroenterology, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Associate Editors:
Andrew Giraud, Ph.D. of the Royal Children’s Hospital’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia
Karnam S. Murthy, Ph.D. of the Virginia Commonwealth University Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Richmond, Virginia, USA
Denise M. Ney, Ph.D. of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Nutritional Sciences, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Detlef Schuppan, M.D., Ph.D. of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Shanthi V. Sitaraman, M.D., Ph.D. of the Emory University Division of Digestive Diseases, Atlanta, GA, USA
David Adams, M.D. of the University of Birmingham Institute of Biomedical Research, Birmingham, England
The group of Associate Editors was invited based on their outstanding science, breadth of knowledge and expertise. Each Associate Editor spans more than one major discipline with interests in basic, translational, and clinical science. In upcoming journal issues, each of the Editors will introduce themselves in more detail with brief synopses of their training and career path and views on key issues or topics relevant to gastrointestinal and liver physiology or science in general.
The Editorial Board
We thank past members who devoted great service to the peer review process. The 2010-2011 Editorial Board comprises a number of returning members who were kind enough to agree to serve an additional term and provide continuity. New members were recommended by the Associate Editors or the outgoing editorial team. The Editorial Board is the lynchpin of the peer review process. We rely heavily on Board members to agree to review, sometimes with a fast turnaround, and to help with split recommendations and unanticipated problems. Board membership will rotate and revise every year. Please send nominations for the Editorial Board to me (including self-nominations) and names will be forwarded to the team of Associate Editors.
The Future of the Journal
Our vision is to expand the scope and impact of the journal by encouraging submission and publication of articles employing cutting-edge, cross discipline, and mechanistic approaches to key physiological questions. A new series of reviews and editorials will cover all areas of GI, liver, and pancreas, and highlight hot topics including but not limited to stem cells, physiology and cancer, gastrointestinal fibrosis and complications, and microbial pathogenesis. A series of mini-reviews will address emerging and novel technologies and their application to GI physiology and pathophysiology. A perspectives series is planned to address the different elements of translational research including training opportunities. We are particularly interested in engaging young investigators, trainees and students in the journal, and welcome their suggestions.
Highlights and Translational Highlights
We aim to highlight particularly novel papers or ones with clear relevance for translation to the clinic. We will do this be adding a “Highlights” or “Translational Highlights” piece to the published paper which offers a brief synopsis of the problem addressed, the key finding, and the novelty or translational relevance. We will also highlight key papers on our website. In 2010, we will add two new section headings, Pancreas and Cancer, to add to the current sections: Translational Physiology, Inflammation/Immunity/Mediators, Hormones and Signaling, Neuroregulation and Motility, Liver and Biliary Tract, Innovative Methodology, and Mucosal Biology.
As editors, we realize that the involvement of our entire GI community will help the journal to grow. We invite our broad community of scientists in GI and Liver Physiology to join us in crafting the future of the journal by sharing their views, submitting their outstanding papers, and contacting us with ideas for scholarly reviews, mini-reviews or focus topics particularly relevant to the field.