Marking a Decade with Storytelling

Abstract

Humanity’s ability to control fire allowed for more than just a change in our diets. It afforded an extension to daylight, and research has shown that it fostered and nurtured social activities like singing, dancing, religious ceremonies, and enthralling storytelling. Imagine now that you are sitting around a proverbial campfire—the “embers of society” (Wiessner, P.W. [2014]. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111, 14027–14035). As you take in the fire’s glow, I will tell you the story of the conception and birth of Cell Host & Microbe. During a couple of gray days in November 2005, at the Wellcome Trust Conference Centre in Cambridge, UK, I was representing Cell Press as the editorial co-organizer of a meeting titled “Host-Microbe Interaction and Human Disease.” The conversations at breakfast, at dinner, and after between the bacteriologists, virologists, parasitologists, immunologists, and cell biologists who were in attendance catalyzed my thinking that a central forum for interdisciplinary discussions around host-microbe interaction was much needed. The community leaders in attendance at the meeting wholeheartedly endorsed this idea. Also emerging from the meeting and beyond was the understanding that host-microbe interactions are much more than host and pathogen warfare, far from black and white, and with at least 50 shades of gray. The field of microbiome research was rising on the horizon and microbiology was going through a renaissance. Lynne Herndon, then the CEO of Cell Press, who was also at the meeting, was also convinced of the potential of and need for a host-microbe interaction journal. The rest, as they say, is history.However, one more part of that history is worth recollecting. When a new baby is expected, family and friends start suggesting names. The expectant parents make a long list of names and think of all the interpretations, connotations, and convolutions of the moniker. Naming a new journal is also fraught with similar handwringing. Cell Pathogens, Pathogenic Cell, Microbial Cell, and Cell Microbes were some of the names considered. Even Cell: the Good, the Bad, and the Microbe was tossed around. When Cell Host & Microbe was first suggested, it was considered too long and clunky. Its possible abbreviation to Cell HM Ella Hinson, who joined in November 2010; and most recently Christine Cosma. Working behind the scenes is our efficient journal assistant Tony Ogden and our capable production department, most notably Lauren Shipp and Emily Stebbins. I want to conclude with a note of warm gratitude to everyone who has added their bit to make Cell Host & Microbe a success. Here’s looking forward to the next 10 years.