oa Editorial from Editor-in-Chief

The journal “Inflammation & Allergy - Drug Targets” has become over the years one of the leading journals in the specialized field of inflammation, allergy and identification of appropriate molecular targets which can be addressed by well known or newly launchend drugs for the benefit of patients. The journal paves scientifically the road for new concepts and ideas and all the people responsible for the success of the journal are prepared that it is time to think outside the box of solely genetic or conventional scientific education - in a time where we are aiming towards personalized medicine and re-think about the concept of epigenetic, which choreographs the interface between the genetic make-up and the environment of a human being. Scientific journals provide a foundation for scientific progress. Limitations of journal space affect the marketplace for ideas. Space is allocated primarily by the decisions of peer reviews. It is known that peer rating do not always correlate well with the number of citations that the papers eventually receive. This suggests that existing policies are not adequate for identifying papers that will be important for further and future research. Importance has many dimensions: i) is the problem novel and important and for whom? ii) do the results add significant news to what is known? iii) will the paper affect decision-making for future research or operationally speaking, for physicians, health care providers, public health organizations or even for the patient. In their attempts to gain status, journals frequently depart from problems that might contribute to decisions-making. To obtain a better assessment of the importance of a problem, as Editor-in-Chief, I strongly encourage authors to submit papers having already addressed molecular or clinical problems and which have been previously published in this journal in order to show now and timely the successful follow-up or even stagnation, focused either on an improved value of the scientific knowledge, competence and eduction or regarding a better clinical outcome. This does not mean to come back what has been referred to as writing the “least publishable unit”, where the reader is forced to use different journals to obtain sufficient details of solving a problem or difficulties. Former authors are invited to report on the objective achievments over the years in their fields of interest in order to keep the readers up to “the-state-of-the-art”. Furthermore, when we are talking about the objectives and goals of a scientific journal, these tend to be embedded with already taken for granted assumptions or working hypothesis. However, implicit importance is what an individual as scientist, what a scientific team and the scientific community is already thinking - for the benefit of the education of the members of her/his scientific community, for the increasing knowledge within a society, and even more important, for the benefit of a human being as a patient. Scientific publishing must not become a poor substitute for its best vision, but should be provocative and vivid. Therefore, we decided to publish a review by Oellers et al. concerning immunological processes within the vitreoretinal compartment. Generally, the eye is regarded as immune incompetent, however, this review clearly states the cellular activities of the immune system in the pathogenesis of e.g. acute macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and, of course, uveitis. Furthermore, aging of the retina is accompanied by many inflammatory processes. As Editor-in-Chief, I very much envisage that this review will deserve within the ophthalmology societies worldwide reading, discussing pro and cons and, ultimately, in citing priority we are looking for. Hopefullly, this review might pave a novel road to understand the largely ignored immune competence of the eye. Scientists are privileged to use their senses, observations and experiments to describe and explain natural phenomena, however, in a sense as Georg Bernard Shaw once has written: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man”. Therefore, let us publish further papers, views, comments and scientific conflicts by unreasonable scientific authors.