Editorial: A joint millennium issue

Abstract

The transition to the 21st century is without doubt a momentous event. It provides an opportunity for scientists, as well as the rest of society, to reflect on the achievements of the past 1000 years, and to consider what the future might hold. We in the life-science community have a lot to be proud of – many different breakthroughs and advances have paved the way towards our current understanding of the fascinating detail of life. We also have a lot to look forward to – the technical developments that have emerged at the end of this millennium will provide a basis for those who come after to us to gather more information than ever before about living organisms. In terms of research potential, the year 2000 is a very good time to be a biologist.We hope that this excitement will come across in our millennium issue. One of the reasons why the pace of research has accelerated so rapidly over recent years is that the individual disciplines have expanded to blur the lines that traditionally divided them. For the three journals that have joined forces to produce this issue, Trends in Biochemical Sciences (TiBS), Trends in Cell Biology (TCB) and Trends in Genetics (TIG), this change has been particularly apparent. For example, genomics and bioinformatics now permeate most, if not all, life-science disciplines, and structural biology is used to inform many different experimental strategies. Most biological researchers find themselves working at a cellular and molecular level at some point in their careers. This overall theme was the main motivation for producing a joint millennium issue – to enhance communication between biologists from different fields and to highlight the major challenges that they face as we enter the 21st century.It would be impossible to survey all of life-science’s progress over the past ten years, let alone the past 1000, within a single issue of a Trends journal. So, rather than focusing on past achievements, we have concentrated on the driving force behind many scientific advances: the thoughts and models of leaders in the field. The overall aim of this issue is to provide an insight into the current thinking of expert researchers in a range of areas spanning the coverage of the three participating journals. The articles are purposely brief, and are written in a way that is intended to be accessible to cell biologists, geneticists and biochemists alike. We have encouraged the authors to avoid specialized examples or jargon and instead to concentrate on the underlying principles, which can sometimes become lost in more detailed reviews of specific subjects. We have also encouraged them to express their own thoughts and opinions, and to compose an essay that conveys their personal view of the area in which they work. Overall, we believe we have amassed an outstanding collection of articles, and we have felt privileged to have the opportunity to work with the authors involved to achieve the final result.This collection is by no means comprehensive. The topics were selected to provide a broad variety of coverage, and both the original choices and the hand of fate determined the final mix. The subjects that have been covered range from one of the most significant issues facing the life-science community at present – the large number of qualified PhDs and the relatively small number of permanent positions – to evolutionary considerations of how the human species came to exist in the first place. We hope you will find all the articles interesting and a valuable insight into current thinking. As they cover general principles rather than specific data, we hope that these essays will still be as relevant in years to come as they are today. Trends journals have been at the forefront of biological review publication for over 20 years, so it seems only fitting that we should aim to produce a millennial issue that will stand the test of time. Of course, time alone will tell whether it actually does.