Editorial

This year marks the eight year in the publication of Current Molecular Medicine, and the successful culmination of the first year under a new Editor-in-Chief. When I took over this position from Dr. Anil Mukherjee, it was with considerable trepidation. Dr. Mukherjee had established this fledge-ling journal from the ground up with his pain staking efforts, and the new Editorial Board had to step into fairly big shoes. Looking back at the past year, I think we can confidently say that the state of the journal is stronger than it has ever been, with continuing increase in readership and high quality submissions. I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the members of the Editorial Board, the Guest Editors who have shepherded Special issues, and of course, numerous colleagues who have taken time out of their valuable schedules to provide expert peer review. I can say without hesitation that finding qualified reviewers who are willing to provide their valuable time and effort for peer review is both the most challenging and the most rewarding task as an Editor-in-Chief. I take my hat off to the scores of anonymous reviewers who provide this service simply out of a sense of citizenship to the scientific community, and without whose acceptance of this nonremunerative responsibility, scientific publications such as ours would always be held askance by its readership. As in the preceding years, I have tried to maintain a balance between “general” issues and special issues dedicated to a narrowly defined topic of interest in molecular medicine. For example, in 2007, we began with a special issue on Cancer Genetics, and interspersed the year with additional dedicated issues on Tuberculosis, Disorders of Glycosylation, culminating with an issue on Receptor for Advanced Glycation Endproducts (RAGE) in December. I am astounded at the panorama of scientific landscape we have covered in a single year, and look forward to continuing in the same vein for 2008. I am sure the readership of the journal will be delighted to learn that we have lined up a plethora of Special issues for the coming year, in topics as diverse as autophagy and apoptosis, inflammatory airway diseases, hypoxia, and angiogenesis. At the same time, we continue to receive, and following rigorous peer review, publish a broad compendium of manuscripts in the “general” issues. As a glance at the table of contents will confirm, these reviews are at the cutting edge of molecular medicine, featuring aspects of Notch signaling, hypoxiainducible factors (HIFs), immune evasion in cancers, and the use of therapeutic intracellular antibodies for combating protein misfolding. It is a small wonder that, despite being in the “early childhood” of its life, CMM has a ranking of 8th out of 76 journals in the area of research and experimental medicine. This Editorial is also my pean to the readership of this journal, which continues to make a wise choice in depending on the contents of CMM for staying up-to-date in this fast changing era of molecular medicine. My promise to you, dear reader, is never to compromise the high quality you have come to rely on over the years.