Developments at Trends in Cell Biology

Abstract

It is an exciting time to be a cell biologist: as our knowledge of biological processes increases, boundaries between disciplines are merging and cell biology is having an increasing impact on a wide range of fields. At the same time, genomics information and effective technologies are accelerating experimental progress. As Trends in Cell Biology approaches its tenth birthday, I hope you will agree that it has blossomed into a thriving forum for the cell biology community, bringing readers authoritative and lively news of the most interesting recent developments. To ensure that the journal fully encompasses this flourishing field and its increasingly interdisciplinary nature, several innovations are under way.You may have noticed that recent issues of Trends in Cell Biology are bigger and have a brighter ‘feel’. The format of the journal will be enhanced further in a few months time by a complete redesign. Informative and topical full-length reviews will always be the main focus of the journal, but new types of article will add more variety – for example, the ‘Headlines’ section will be expanded so that, in addition to its present scope of highlighting important recent publications, it also serves to keep readers abreast of the latest news.Several current ‘Headlines’ can be accessed on the internet as ‘Commentaries’ in the ‘News and Comment’ section of BioMedNet, which hosts the on-line version of the journal. The BioMedNet ‘Commentaries’ section is updated daily and provides timely coverage of outstanding papers across the life sciences. BioMedNet also has a team of news reporters that provides ‘live’ coverage of major conferences in the life sciences by publishing stories on the Web during the meeting. Trends in Cell Biology is bringing you a selection of news stories from the first annual meeting of the European Life Scientist Organization (ELSO), which took place in Geneva in September 2000, in a special ‘conference reporter’ supplement.The journal will also be featuring a sequel to the immensely popular ‘GFP in motion’ CD (compiled two years ago by Beat Ludin and Andrew Matus) that will provide an update on more recent applications of the omnipresent green fluorescent protein technology. Look out for the new CD in an issue of the journal early next year.I feel fortunate to be taking on the editorship of Trends in Cell Biology at this fascinating time for both the journal and the field of cell biology. I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have built up the journal in the past nine years to be the success that it is. I should thank in particular the authors, referees and editorial board, as well as the previous Editor, Deborah Sweet, whose great efforts have ensured the high quality of the articles. Especial thanks are due to my colleague David Hatton, who has had a crucial role on the journal team for the past five years and has also made a substantial contribution in serving as acting Editor of the journal over recent months.David and I look forward to meeting more of the cell biology community and hope to have your feedback on all aspects of the journal – please look out for us at conferences. We welcome your suggestions and would also like to stimulate useful discussion of current issues, so will be encouraging and publishing correspondence about articles in the journal. We are committed to serving our readers’ interests and aim to provide informative, interesting and accessible reviews and discussion about the topics and advances that are important to you. We would welcome your comments at: tcb@current-trends.com.