Happy Birthday, MBS!

Abstract

Macromolecular BioscienceVolume 10, Issue 1 p. 7-11 EditorialFree Access Happy Birthday, MBS! First published: 23 December 2009 https://doi.org/10.1002/mabi.200900416Citations: 1AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat 2009 has been another very successful year for Macromolecular Bioscience - the journal received its highest-ever Impact Factor, experienced an enormous increase in submissions and saw the publication of two highly successful special issues. We expect this growth to continue in 2010, but we have this year yet another good reason to celebrate: we are publishing already the tenth volume of Macromolecular Bioscience! MBS is definitely a success story - starting with nine issues per year and only 400 published pages in 2001 (in its first two years MBS appeared attached to Macromolecular Chemistry & Physics), the frequency was increased to twelve issues per year in 2003 and exceeded 1 000 pages already in its fourth year. The submissions have increased continuously and especially fast over the last years (we received nearly 50% more articles in 2009 compared to 2007), also due to the grown reputation of the journal and the excellent Impact Factor results. In 2009 MBS again achieved an outstanding result in the ISI Journal Citation Reports® - the journal's Impact Factor increased by another 16% (ISI 2008: 3.298); MBS is ranked among the top 5 biomaterials journals and among the top 10 polymer journals (see Figure 1 for the more recent development of MBS' IF). Figure 1Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Development of MBS' Impact Factor from 2004–2008. Presently, we are receiving four times as many manuscripts than we can publish in the limited space available and we have been struggling not to exceed our page budget for years, although this has been raised over the years to now 1 600 pages. As a consequence, we had to become even more selective (a hard task as the average quality of submitted articles improved significantly over the years!). We also had to adjust the topical focus of the journal from time to time, concentrating on the topics of highest interest to our readership. As for all Macromolecular Journals, all manuscripts are pre-screened for quality and topical interest. Many contributions have to be rejected without external peer-reviewing (50% in 2009), but as many of them as possible are redirected to other Wiley journals: for example, articles on the synthesis of biodegradable polymers or polymers from renewable sources are very often of more interest to the readership of Macromolecular Chemistry & Physics, while those on mechanical properties of polymeric biomaterials are of highest interest to the readers of Macromolecular Materials & Engineering. Articles focusing on biomaterials, but not on polymer related aspects are highly interesting to Advanced Biomaterials, the section within Advanced Engineering Materials that has been launched in 2008. Over the years the topical focus of the journal may have changed, however, MBS still presents a broad variety of topics, as can also be seen from the Wiley InterScience download statistics (for a monthly updated list of most accessed articles please visit the journal's homepage at www.mbs-journal.de) and the ISI citation statistics. Table 1 lists the most downloaded articles from this year, whereas Table 2 shows a list of most cited articles, for each year in which MBS has been published. In these tables you will find articles on tissue engineering and cartilage repair, on drug, gene and protein delivery, on protein structure and biomedical application of (bio)polymers, on polylactides, alginate hydrogels and peptides as biomaterials, on interaction of polymers with cells as well as articles on biotechnological production of biopolymers. Table 1. Highly read articles in 2009 (January to October 2009). Stimuli-Responsive Polymersomes as Nanocarriers for Drug and Gene Delivery W. Meier et al.1 Hybrid Multicomponent Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering X. Jia et al.2 Nickel-Ion-Mediated Control of the Stoichiometry of His-Tagged Protein/Nanoparticle Interactions V. M. Rotello et al.3 Electrospun Non-Woven Nanofibrous Hybrid Mats Based on Chitosan and PLA for Wound-Dressing Applications I. Rashkov et al.4 Rheological Properties of Cross-Linked Hyaluronan-Gelatin Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering G. D. Prestwich et al.5 Poly[lactic-co-(glycolic acid)]-Grafted Hyaluronic Acid Copolymer Micelle Nanoparticles for Target-Specific Delivery of Doxorubicin T. G. Park et al.6 A Novel Double-Network Hydrogel Induces Spontaneous Articular Cartilage Regeneration in vivo in a Large Osteochondral Defect K. Yasuda et al.7 Functional PLGA Scaffolds for Chondrogenesis of Bone-Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells D. K. Han et al.8 Injectable Microsphere/Hydrogel Combination Systems for Localized Protein Delivery K. Y. Lee et al.9 A Water-Borne Adhesive Modeled after the Sandcastle Glue of P. californica R. J. Stewart et al.10 Table 2. Most cited articles per year (2001–2009). Perspectives for Biotechnological Production and Utilization of Biopolymers: Metabolic Engineering of Polyhydroxyalkanoate Biosynthesis Pathways as a Successful Example A. Steinbüchel11 Scaffold Design for Tissue Engineering G. P. Chen et al.12 Chemical Modification of Chitosan, 17 - Michael Reaction of Chitosan with Acrylic Acid in Water H. Sashiwa et al.13 An Overview of Polylactides as Packaging Materials R. Auras et al.14 Ionic Liquids as Reaction Medium in Cellulose Functionalization T. Heinze et al.15 Alginate Hydrogels as Biomaterials A. D. Augst et al.16 Designer Self-Assembling Peptide Materials S. G. Zhang et al.17 Preparation of Biodegradable Polymer Nanoparticles by Miniemulsion Technique and Their Cell Interactions K. Landfester et al.18 Thermo-Responsive Polyoxazolines with Widely Tuneable LCST H. Schlaad et al.19 Coming again to the more recent developments: In 2009 two very successful special issues have been published. The first (issue 2, 2009) was devoted to “Polymers in Life Science” and was guest-edited by Andreas Taubert (University of Potsdam). This issue compiled Reviews, Communications and Full Papers to present recent developments and newest results in fields such as protein folding, structure, and interactions, resorbable polymers for reconstruction of organs, tissue engineering, drug and protein delivery and polymer structure. Three papers from this issue are the most downloaded articles in 2009 - see Table 1. Xuesi Chen (Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry) guest-edited the second special issue which was devoted to “Biomaterials in China” (issue 12, 2009). Although great progress has been achieved in the interdisciplinary field of macromolecular bioscience in China in recent years, the influence exerted by Chinese scientists working in this area on a global scale is still limited. One reason for this is that significant developments in the field achieved in China are not yet well recognized by other scientists around the world. Therefore this issue was organized to highlight the current developments in macromolecular bioscience in China. Exciting results are presented from areas such as gene therapy, drug delivery, tissue engineering, bioimaging, surface biomaterial modification, mimic biomaterials, and biodegradation. Several other special issues are already in preparation or under discussion. One of the next special issues will be devoted to “Micro- and nanocapsules for biological and biomedical applications” (guest-edited by Jan van Hest) and another one will be devoted to “Analytical Ultracentrifugation” (guest-edited by Helmut Cölfen). The other members of the Macromolecular Family also showed a very good development in 2009. Here only a few of the highlights will be listed - please read the individual editorials of the respective Macromolecular Journal to find out more. Macromolecular Rapid Communications celebrated in 2009 the publication of its 30th volume. Moreover, in 2009 MRC received its highest ever Impact Factor (now 3.9! - putting it second among all journals publishing original research in general polymer science), the journal experienced a significant increase in submissions, the publication of more review type articles than ever before and an even faster peer-review process. MRC saw the publication of four highly successful special issues: its own anniversary issue, an issue dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the MPI for Polymer Research in Mainz (guest-edited by H.W. Spiess on behalf of the MPI-P Directors), “Self-Organized Materials for Optoelectronic Applications” (R. Zentel) and “Acrylate Free Radical Polymerization: From Mechanism to Polymer Design” (C. Barner-Kowollik). Macromolecular Chemistry & Physics with a further increased Impact Factor of 2.202 could reaffirm its established position and has entered again the top-10 of journals publishing original research in general polymer science. The highly successful Special Article Series on “Functional Polymers” was continued throughout 2009 under the guest-editorship of B.Z. Tang, with the new topical focus on “polymers with luminogenic properties”. Macromolecular Theory & Simulations enjoyed again a significantly increased Impact Factor to the journal's highest value ever of 1.912, confirming the position of MTS as the only high-quality polymer science journal dedicated exclusively to theory and simulations. More recently a new Special Article Series on “Modeling for Polymer Design”, guest-edited by C. Barner-Kowollik, was launched. In its 10th year of publication Macromolecular Materials & Engineering enjoyed a significant increase of the ISI Impact Factor by 41% (!) to a new value of now 1.925. In response to the increased numbers of submissions, even more strict selection criteria are applied to ensure that only contributions of highest quality and importance are published. In summer 2009, Macromolecular Reaction Engineering received its first, very promising ISI Impact Factor of 1.041. The continuous growth and successful development of MRE is supported by several newly launched Special Article Series, such as “New Technologies” (guest-edited by K.-D. Hungenberg), new trends in “Polyolefins” (J. C. Chadwick), and “Sensors and Process Control” (J .R. Leiza). Macromolecular Symposia looks back at another successful year, presenting state-of-the-art research articles from international conferences. The good cooperation with IUPAC as well as the publication of articles from the ACS conference “MACROMEX” (Macromol. Symp. 283–284: “New Trends in Polymer Science”, edited by K. Matyjaszewski, R. Advincula, E. Saldívar-Guerra, G. Luna-Bárcenas, R. González-Núñez) conduced to this success. We welcome this year three new board members: Hans G. Börner (Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany), Jean-Francois Lutz (Fraunhofer Institut für Angewandte Polymerforschung, Golm, Germany) and Timothy E. Long (Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA) joined the International Advisory Board of MBS. We look forward to a close and fruitful cooperation! At this point we would like to thank all those who have contributed to the enormous success and fast growth of Macromolecular Bioscience: the members of our Advisory Boards for their valuable support, the dedicated reviewers for their help in evaluating the flood of highly interesting manuscripts, our authors for sending their excellent results and last but not least our steadily growing readership for their interest. The field of biomaterials is steadily and fast growing, as also reflected by many news items on MaterialsViews.com related to bio-applications of materials and biological materials. To keep updated on the newest developments, please register for the weekly newsletter on MaterialsViews.com or visit the page for daily updated news on all aspects of materials science, from the borders of chemistry and physics to the boundaries of life sciences and engineering, and from basic research to cutting-edge applications. MaterialsViews.com offers of course also RSS feeds and can be found on Twitter (http://twitter.com/materialsviews) Also the Macromolecular Journals are exploring also the new and exciting world of social media and Web 2.0: Get the newest developments in the field and be notified on the hottest articles published within the Macromolecular journals - follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/macrojournals We hope you'll enjoy the reading of the tenth volume of MBS and look forward to entering with you the next decade of success! Sandra Kalveram Editor Tribute Examining biological systems from a materials perspective provides a lifetime of learning. Material strategies have evolved in biology to allow survival and reproduction against all environmental perturbations, extremes and challengers. We can learn a great deal from the material solutions to challenges in nature to help guide us into the future. Thus the confluence of biology and materials science remains a source of remarkable inspiration. These concepts represent a key factor for the origins and success of Macromolecular Bioscience over the first 10 years, providing scientists an outlet to communicate and propel this field. We can also take the inspiration from nature as a starting point and forge new directions never planned in biology, with an initial guide provided from genetic codes, novel building blocks, structural hierarchy, aqueous processing environments, compartmentalization, coupled reaction systems, self-assembly, among others. While we remain at our infancy in terms of understanding these concepts, journals like Macromolecular Bioscience build a community of understanding and a foundation so that the field can be poised for further impact in many high technology, biomedical and environmental applications. Such impact can help guide future needs in sustainability. Macromolecular Bioscience will continue to play a major role in the scientific communication, growth, and impact of this field by providing an active venue for studies at the interface of biology and materials science that allow for the essential communication in the field. David L. Kaplan Tufts University Tribute To which journal is our research paper to be submitted? This kind of question was often raised from scientists who studied in the interface areas of polymer science and biological science around the end of 20th century. The 21st century, however, brought about a new journal of Macromolecular Bioscience (MBS) that greatly contributed to rectifying the above question. The first decade of this century from the launch of MBS clearly indicates that MBS has been acting internationally as one of the central media for the scientists mentioned above. They often published papers of high level research in MBS and the readers got to know something about new results and were inspired to think of new ideas for research subjects. The ISI impact factor value of MBS, for example, started from 1.8 going up to a new value 3.3 in 2009, the position of which stands among the top 10 polymer journals and also ranking among the top 5 biomaterial journals, demonstrating that MBS is definitely an internationally leading journal. The polymer (or macromolecular) science field belongs to materials science. In the last century, a majority of materials science research has been focused on materials from the viewpoints of chemistry and physics. In the 21st century, however, the aspect of biological science has become much more important in the research paper area published in MBS. Materials science will definitely be proceeding with taking the main stream of studying materials in the merging field of chemistry, physics, biology, medicine, and pharmacy. MBS shall play a role of networking the knowledge and information of these fields. From such direction of research, it is expected to discover novel findings in concepts and/or create a completely new functional material(s) that have been hard to consider in the conventional line of work. This will be not an easy dream but be likely realized. I am really expecting that MBS shall report to us such wonderful news through published papers in the future. In my opinion, the first successful decade of MBS will promise the second and following decades as well. The research areas covering MBS are full of very interesting and probably not yet disclosed research topics, which will continue to attract scientists for giving a strong motivation to be involved in such fascinating areas. Congratulation for the ten years anniversary of MBS! Shiro Kobayashi Kyoto Institute of Technology Tribute Happy birthday Macromolecular Bioscience! Ten years may sometimes be a short stretch in the evolution of scientific thinking, but let's look back at the time when Macromolecular Bioscience was born. Internet had then just started to change the world of scientific information, and journals and authors were sometimes painfully starting to adapt to on-line services and submissions; University libraries were evolving too, from being physical repositories of knowledge on paper supports to becoming suppliers of virtual and remote services. Still in the '90s I was used to spend weeks reading Chemical Abstracts in dusty library rooms, smelling the ink and touching the yellowing paper; the same job that now, with a less fascinating but more efficacious quest, I could probably do in a few clicks from my office or even from home. Scientific paradigms were also changing rapidly in and around life sciences: it is sufficient to recall the effects of the genomic revolution, the new approach to complexity offered by systems biology, the increasing cross-contamination between tissue engineering and biomaterials. Macromolecular Bioscience was born in this time of epochal and exciting changes that have transformed the tools, the modes and also the contents of knowledge dissemination, making it faster, more fluid and more interdisciplinary. In this challenging scenario, Macromolecular Bioscience has worked well and it is healthy. The positive statement is not solely a reflection of its excellent positioning in its own disciplines, polymer science and biomaterials, nor of its continuously growing impact factor. The journal is in good health also because of its evolving scientific content, which is an indication both of the dynamic character of the community, and of the vitality of the journal that serves it: for instance, in 2001 almost 50% of the papers dealt with degradable polyesters and/or enzymatic/bacterial processes on polymers, a proportion that has decreased to about 20% in 2009 (January to October issues). In the same time periods, papers on polysaccharide-based materials have increased their share from 10 to 25%. However, there are always further targets to reach. As a future development I wish that the journal will increasingly think laterally, further promoting the integration of polymer science with life sciences and in particular with advanced bioanalytical technologies (‘omics’) and biophysics. The journal may also consider promoting more attention to research methods, with the aim to contributing to the formation of interdisciplinary researchers that, ultimately, set plan and objectives as engineers (practical and meaningful aims, careful choice of variables), organize the experiments as biologists (plenty of controls, statistics), and interpret them as chemists (final molecular understanding). Happy birthday Macromolecular Bioscience! Nicola Tirelli University of Manchester References 1 O. Onaca, R. Enea, D. W. Hughes, W. Meier, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 129. 2 X. Jia, K. L. Kiick, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 140. 3 M. De, S. Rana, V. M. Rotello, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 174. 4 M. Ignatova, N. Manolova, N. Markova, I. Rashkov, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 102. 5 J. L. Vanderhooft, M. Alcoutlabi, J. J. Magda, G. D. Prestwich, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 20. 6 H. Lee, C.-H. Ahn, T. G. Park, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 336. 7 K. Yasuda, N. Kitamura, J. P. Gong, K. Arakaki, H. J. Kwon, S. Onodera, Y. M. Chen, T. Kurokawa, F. Kanaya, Y. Ohmiya, Y. Osada, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 307. 8 K. Park, K.-J. Cho, J.-J. Kim, I.-H. Kim, D. K. Han, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 221. 9 J. Lee, K. Y. Lee, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 671. 10 H. Shao, K. N. Bachus, R. J. Stewart, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 464. 11 A. Steinbüchel, Macromol. Biosci. 2001, 1, 1. 12 G. P. Chen, T. Ushida, T. Tateishi, Macromol. Biosci. 2002, 2, 67. 13 H. Sashiwa, N. Yamamori, Y. Ichinose, J. Sunamoto, S.-i. Aiba, Macromol. Biosci. 2003, 3, 231. 14 R. Auras, B. Harte, S. Selke, Macromol. Biosci. 2004, 4, 835. 15 T. Heinze, K. Schwikal, S. Barthel, Macromol. Biosci. 2005, 5, 520. 16 A. D. Augst, H. J. Kong, D. J. Mooney, Macromol. Biosci. 2006, 6, 623. 17 X. J. Zhao, S. G. Zhang, Macromol. Biosci. 2007, 7, 13. 18 A. Musyanovych, J. Schmitz-Wienke, V. Mailänder, P. Walther, K. Landfester, Macromol. Biosci. 2008, 8, 127. 19 C. Diehl, H. Schlaad, Macromol. Biosci. 2009, 9, 157. Citing Literature Volume10, Issue1January 11, 2010Pages 7-11 FiguresReferencesRelatedInformation