Introducing Worm

Abstract

In 1963 Sydney Brenner proposed to study the development of multi-cellular organisms using a genetic approach in a simple animal. He settled on a small, transparent nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, which develops quickly and is anatomically simple with less than a thousand somatic cells. Almost half a century later there are many more researchers studying C. elegans than there are somatic cells in this animal and the areas of research have expanded to cover many aspects of cell and developmental biology, behavior, physiology and more recently evolutionary and population biology. Pioneering studies have led to Nobel prizes for six C. elegans researchers in the last decade, illustrating the importance of the discoveries made by studying this relatively simple metazoan. C. elegans researchers have always maintained a strong sense of community and this collegiality is also visible in the collection and dissemination of research results. Wormbase, the main database integrating molecular, genetic and phenotypic data on genes and genomes, has a long history of collecting and presenting data contributed by researchers independently of official publications. This information-sharing spirit is also apparent in the “Worm Breeder’s Gazette”, which provides an informal way to report a variety of interesting results without official peer-review process. Despite this collective intelligence, the current size of the worm field makes it difficult to keep up with all the information. More and more interesting findings never make it into official publications, in part because it can be frustrating to see a manuscript through the publication process. This new journal can help to reverse this trend, insuring that information gets out to the community in a timely manner. Worm aims to provide a straightforward and quick publication process. Editors and reviewers are active researchers of the same model organism with an intimate knowledge of its advantages and limitations at the experimental level. Time and again, discoveries from nematode researchers have implications for other researchers working on a seemingly unrelated question. Worm invites submissions from all areas of research using C. elegans and other nematodes. Sometimes results are intriguing, but do not provide immediate “mechanistic insights”. Nevertheless they might be of immediate interest to the research community. Worm offers the opportunity to submit such results as short communications. More and more studies now cross the borders of traditional disciplines, so that they might not be suitable for topic-oriented journals. Worm offers an opportunity to present exciting results irrespective of the topic of research. Worm also publishes techniques or methods papers of relevance to nematode researchers. While C. elegans currently is the most prominent nematode, it is certainly not the only one studied. With more and more genome sequence information available, research on other nematodes is likely to expand even further. We encourage all nematode researchers to consider Worm as a journal for the dissemination of their discoveries. We are optimistic that this journal will provide a place for nematode researchers to submit some of their most interesting findings. I hope you will enjoy the first issue and keep this journal in mind not just as reader, but also as author.