Celebrating a decade of Trends in Cell Biology

Abstract

Trends in Cell Biology (TCB) was launched ten years ago in July 1991 as the tenth journal in the Trends journal stable, filling an obvious niche between its sister journals Trends in Biochemical Sciences and Trends in Genetics just as the cell biology boom was coming into full stride. The reviews in this issue have been specially commissioned to celebrate TCB's tenth anniversary by highlighting some of the exciting progress in cell biology that has occurred during TCB's lifetime. Expert researchers in a broad selection of fields give personal viewpoints on how their field has evolved over the past decade and, in the spirit of Trends, they emphasize our current understanding and the latest exciting advances as well as examining what the future might hold. Many of the topics covered here featured in the first volume or two of TCB, and indeed several of these authors wrote for the journal a decade ago and have used their previous review as a point of reference. It is of course impossible to comprehensively cover ten years of cell biology research in just one issue of the journal, but I think these reviews – covering topics that are as prominent today as they were ten years ago – can at least give a sense of the great maturation that many fields of cell biology have gone through in this time. In the accompanying editorial article, Hugh Pelham, a long-standing member of TCB's editorial board, sets the scene with an introduction, and, in the Forum section, two previous TCB editors describe their experiences in science publishing. I would like to thank all the contributors for their thoughtful and stimulating reviews and for keeping to our tight deadlines, and also the referees and members of the editorial board for helpful input and guidance. Thanks are also due to all those who have supported and contributed to TCB over the past decade. The TCB editorial team looks forward to working with you in reviewing and discussing the exciting events of the next decade!