Editorial from the New Editor-in-Chief

Abstract

I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the TCBB Steering Committee for the trust and opportunity it has given me to serve as the new Editor-in-Chief of the journal. I am really excited about all the possibilities that I can explore through working with the excellent Editorial Board, the Steering Committee, and the Computer Society staff, to help the journal continue to grow. I also recognize that I have very big shoes to fill, knowing the fantastic jobs that my predecessors Professor Dan Gusfield and Professor Marie-France Sagot have done since the founding of the journal in 2004. I was trained as a theoretical computer scientist and am now working in a biochemistry and molecular biology department. I hope that I can help to build stronger ties between the journal and a larger biological community, striving to make TCBB a leading resource for biologists to check out first when they search for the most useful computational techniques and tools to handle their data analysis and computational prediction and modeling needs. Biology is becoming increasingly more quantitative fueled by the rapid and continued emergence of new omic techniques. The availability of such data has made it possible for biologists to ask broader and deeper questions about more complex biological systems. It clearly requires increasingly more powerful techniques and tools to derive all the information hidden in the large quantities of the omic data and to facilitate the full utilization of the information in addressing specific biological questions. This is a really great time for computational biologists and bioinformaticians, as the needs for such people are tremendous. TCBB can clearly play a key role in helping the transition of biology to become a more quantitative science built on fundamental principles and laws. I plan to bring in additional editorial board members whose expertise will be complementary to that of the current board members, to better position the journal to attract and handle submissions in the emerging areas of bioinformatics and computational biology, mostly driven by the emergence of new omic techniques. I also aim to establish a new column for review articles to better inform the community associated with the TCBB about the new data and computational needs and challenges from different areas of biology, helping to make the information flow both ways efficiently. I am also looking forward to hearing suggestions and advice from the readers, authors, and the editorial board members of the journal, which can help to move TCBB to the next level, based on the superb foundation that Professor Dan Gusfield and Professor Marie-France Sagot have laid. I look forward to working and interacting with you!