Farewell Statement from Dr. Cerami and Dr. Tracey as Outgoing Co-Editors in Chief of Molecular Medicine

This fall marks the 20-year anniversary of Kenneth S Warren and Anthony Cerami launching Molecular Medicine. Their mission was to offer a new venue for the publication of scientific papers that would address the important medical problems of the world. For the past 8 years, Dr. Tracey and I have functioned as co-Editors in Chief of Molecular Medicine. It has been our pleasure to serve as editors in the exciting field of molecular medicine. Going forward, we will continue to provide guidance to Molecular Medicine as Editors Emeriti. Dr. Tracey will also become Editor in Chief of Bioelectronic Medicine, the newly launched sister journal of Molecular Medicine.

We are proud of the direction Molecular Medicine has taken during our 8-year tenure. Annual submissions continue to improve, allowing us the selection of increasingly relevant and timely content. This success has also allowed for a change in publication frequency. When we began our editorial term in 2006, publication frequency was quarterly. We have since moved to bimonthly, then monthly, and finally, continuous publication. Additionally, we terminated the print version of the journal (last printing December 2012) and have focused on our online presence. All content dating back to our inaugural issue in 1994 is open access and available online. Our web traffic has increased year after year, and our impact factor places us in the top 8% of over 8,000 international peer-reviewed journals listed in the Journal Citation Reports® (JCR). Moreover, we have added to our journal by establishing the Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine and the Anthony Cerami Award in Translational Medicine, honoring midlevel and senior level scientists, respectively. We also provide meeting support for the Merinoff Symposia and the Merinoff World Congress, including dissemination of video presentations, poster abstracts, and meeting-related papers.

We wish to thank our international board of Contributing Editors for their input and guidance, as well as the editorial staff at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York for keeping us at the forefront of scientific publishing. We would like to thank the contributing authors for trusting us with their hard-earned content and the reviewers for donating their time and providing constructive criticism of articles.

It is with great pleasure that we announce Dr. Betty Diamond will be the new Editor in Chief of Molecular Medicine. Dr. Diamond received an MD from Harvard Medical School, performed a residency in internal medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and received postdoctoral training in immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She has headed the rheumatology divisions at Albert Einstein School of Medicine and at Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Diamond also directed the Medical Scientist Training Program at Albert Einstein School of Medicine for many years. She is currently head of the Center for Autoimmune and Musculoskeletal Diseases at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and is director of the PhD and MD/PhD programs at the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine. A former president of the American Association of Immunology, Dr. Diamond has also served on the board of directors of the American College of Rheumatology and the Scientific Council of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS). Dr. Diamond is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Dr. Diamond has served as a Contributing Editor to Molecular Medicine over the past 8 years, and we welcome her to the new role of Editor in Chief.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no competing interests as defined by Molecular Medicine, or other interests that might be perceived to influence the results and discussion reported in this paper.