A letter from the executive editor

Abstract

AbstractColleagues,One of the attractions of the position of Executive Editor is the opportunity to consider creative and experimental approaches to publishing findings from research on the frontiers of insect science. In future issues of Archives, we will be more active in publishing special issues. On one hand, we will continue working to publish special issues emerging from symposia presentations at scientific meetings. With cooperation from reviewers and from the publisher, we can arrange expedited reviews and rapid publication of issues that will appear in a timely manner relative to symposia presentations. On the other hand, we are also experimenting with Special Topics Issues, to appear no more than once each year. For these issues, papers from previous volumes of Archives will be published as a set of articles devoted to a single topic. The topics will emphasize research opportunities that are emerging or perhaps re‐emerging on the horizons of our field.For this first Special Topics Issue, we have collected several papers devoted to insect cell culture. Studies of insect cell culture enjoy a lengthy history, dating back to the 1930’s when the practical goal of culturing insect cells related to research on insect‐borne viruses. In the years since this early work, we have seen marvelous progress in cell culture techniques and in the use of cell cultures to forge important advances in basic and applied research. The papers in this Special Topics Issue highlight some of the contemporary research with insect cell cultures, including analysis of an ion transport peptide, studies of glandular secretion, interactions of hormones and cells, the influence of an insect growth regulator on insect cells and activation of cellular immunity. We see, also, that basic work on cellular nutrition continues to yield important insights. It is hoped that Special Topics Issues will help facilitate further research. We welcome your suggestions for future Special Topics Issues.In another innovative experiment in publishing, we have an opportunity to help bolster the careers of our colleagues in postdoctoral positions. As we all know, the postdoctoral phase of careers in insect science is growing in length and in the numbers of postdoctoral scientists. We invite nominations from mentors of active postdoctoral scientists (who have not yet accepted a permanent professional position), who may benefit from the experience of developing a sole‐authored mini‐review centered around their current research investigations. We are now developing guidelines for mini‐reviews, which will undergo the standard scrutiny of anonymous peer review. As always, your comments, and certainly your manuscripts are welcome. We look forward to working with you on these new initiatives.