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Editorial |
The past year has been an eventful one for the Journal of Lipid Research (JLR). The Directors of Lipid Research, Inc. (LRI), the owner of the Journal since its inception in 1959, are pleased to make some important announcements that should be of great interest to our authors and readers. The first of these is the transfer of ownership of the JLR to the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) in July 2003. In June 2000, LRI entered into an agreement with the ASBMB to manage the publication of the Journal. Although this arrangement was similar to our previous management agreement with FASEB, it was undertaken with the understanding that LRI and the ASBMB would begin to explore the possibility of transfer of ownership and responsibility for publishing the JLR to the ASBMB. We were aware that the leadership of the ASBMB, through its Council and Publications Committee, was considering expansion of its publication activities beyond the Journal of Biological Chemistry. It was also evident to us that scientific journal publication was undergoing changes that were technically and conceptually challenging, particularly to a free-standing journal such as the JLR, which has never previously been sponsored by a scientific society.
During the last 3 years of affiliation with the ASBMB, we have had ample time to work closely with its publications office, and LRI's president has served as a member of the ASBMB Publications Committee. The ASBMB has indeed initiated another new journal, Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, and has become publisher of still another professional journal owned by the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, indicating its firm commitment to expanding and supporting additional publications. Equally important, our relationship with all sectors of the ASBMB, including its top leadership, has been most satisfactory. Indeed, the JLR has thrived in this setting. The ASBMB Publications Office is sufficiently large to provide expertise and support at several levels. Of particular importance during this period has been implementation of online submission and review and, most recently, the inauguration of JLR Papers in Press, whereby manuscripts are published online within approximately 2 weeks of acceptance. Trudy Forte, Editor-in-Chief, Carmen Escobar, Trudy's Editorial Assistant, and Virginia Bourgeois, the JLR Production Editor in Bethesda, all deserve enormous credit for successfully carrying through these important changes that have placed the JLR in the vanguard of these advances in scientific publication. It is also clear, however, that these achievements would have been much more challenging without the advice and support of Charles Hancock, the ASBMB's Executive Officer, Barbara Gordon, Director of Publications, and their staff.
The Directors of LRI have carefully evaluated the development of our relationship with the ASBMB, as has the Council and the Publications and Finance Committees of the ASBMB. Both parties agreed last spring on the transfer of ownership of the JLR to the ASBMB, effective July 1, 2003. The LRI Directors are convinced that this action will ensure the Journal's future as the leading publication in biological lipid research. The agreement, which has now been formalized, includes the following statement: "The JLR will become an official ASBMB journal and will continue to be published and cited as the ‘Journal of Lipid Research.’ ASBMB intends to work to maintain the JLR as the premier journal in the lipid field, to broaden its appeal to authors, and to increase its impact even more." Under the agreement, the editorial operations of the JLR will continue to be managed by an Editor-in-Chief, assisted by Associate Editors and an Editorial Board, and the relationship between authors and the Journal's editorial offices will remain much as at present. LRI's Advisory Board for the Journal will be dissolved, and LRI will transfer most of its considerable assets ($1,000,000) to the ASBMB, to be used exclusively in support of the JLR. The Publications Committee of the ASBMB will be the oversight body for the Journal, and it is anticipated that the Editor-in-Chief will work closely with the Associate Editors for ongoing Journal operations and editorial decisions, much as has been the case for the Journal of Biological Chemistry. We wish to thank all of the many people who have made this landmark change for publication of the JLR possible, and particularly Lewis Gidez, former Executive Editor of the Journal, who had a key role in working out our initial arrangements with the ASBMB.
We are very pleased to announce at this time the appointment of Edward Dennis as the next Editor-in-Chief of the JLR, effective July 1, 2003. Ed is professor and former chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), and a distinguished biochemist with a special interest in phospholipases and eicosanoids. We are also pleased to announce that Joseph Witztum, professor in the Department of Medicine at UCSD, whose immunological studies of modified lipoproteins and other accomplishments in the lipoprotein field are internationally recognized, will serve as Deputy Editor. The JLR is clearly entering the new era as an official ASBMB journal under outstanding leadership.
Finally, we are delighted to announce the availability of the complete JLR Online Archive, something almost no other scientific journal has achieved to date. All issues of the JLR back to Volume 1, Number 1, dated October, 1959, will soon be accessible online in searchable PDF format at www.jlr.org. Our archive is substantial, but of a sufficiently manageable size that we could afford to make this invaluable resource available free to all our authors, loyal subscribers and readers, as well as any interested scientist. Now all will have ready access to original data and less reason unwittingly to repeat the past!
We are pleased that the JLR has found a new home with the ASBMB. We are confident that the Journal will thrive in its new setting and continue to set standards in the field of lipid research.
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