Experimental Biology and Medicine 232:1255-1257 (2007)
© 2007 Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine
EDITORIAL
Experimental Biology and Medicine Embraces Our Scientific Colleagues In Asia
Steven R. Goodman, Editor-in-Chief
From April 12th to the 14th, 2007, I had the privilege of participating in the first meeting of the Advisory Board of the Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, China. I gave an invited speech on Publication Trends in the 21st Century during which I was able to use our journal, Experimental Biology and Medicine, as perhaps the archetypal example of a paradigmatic shift in biomedical publishing. I discussed the move to include interdisciplinary focus areas, expansion of our Associate Editors and Editorial Board members by over 100 to include experts in these interdisciplinary areas, addition of our honorary Nobel Laureate Board members, and a focus on being a truly international journal with regard to our Editorial Board and readership.
At the Britton Chance Center for Biophotonics at HUST, I found a dedicated and outstanding faculty, energetic students, a beautiful modern building, and modern equipment including a femtosecond pulse laser, a multi-photon microscopy system, a highly sensitive image detecting system, a near infrared brain function imaging system, an intrinsic optical signal imaging system, a laser speckle imaging system, a digital x-ray imaging system, a microelectrode array and patch clamp system, a high resolution microscopic data acquiring system for anatomic structure, and a high performance computing cluster. The building and equipment immediately conveyed an impressive image of the fruits of the resources that the Chinese government is providing to biomedical research. The fruits are also demonstrated by the enthusiasm, which was infectious, of the Center’s students and faculty.
The Advisory Board that has been attracted to this Center in Wuhan, China, speaks volumes to the importance of the expansion of biomedical science in China and all of Asia. A picture is often worth much more than a thousand words, and the first picture (Fig. 1
) features the distinguished members of the Advisory Board for the Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics. All of the Advisory Board Members are leaders in the worlds of research and business. I will focus on a few people who are directly relevant to Experimental Biology and Medicine. In the first row, third from the right, is Professor Aaron Ciechanover. Aaron, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004 for his brilliant work on the ubiquitin proteasome system, is a Nobel Honorary member of the EBM Editorial Board. Second from the right is Ruey-Jen Sung, the former Dean of the Medical School of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, Taiwan. Dr. Sung was formerly professor of cardiology at Stanford University. Sixth from the right in the first row is Professor Britton Chance, the "father of modern biophysics," for whom the Center for Biomedical Photonics was named. Seventh from the right in the first row is Da Hsuan Feng. Da Hsuan has been the Vice President for Research and Economic Development at UT Dallas and by the time this Editorial appears will be the Senior Executive Vice President for Research Affairs at NCKU. NCKU will be one of the foci of the EBM expansion into Asia. Eighth from the right in the first row is A. Stephen Dahms, CEO of the Alfred Mann Foundation of California, a multi-billion dollar philanthropic organization whose main interest is to promote the commercialization of biotechnology worldwide. In the second row, sixth from the right, is Professor Richard Hawkes, Associate Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, and a new member of the Neuroscience section of the EBM Editorial Board. Seventh from the right in the second row you find your Editor-in-Chief, who has proudly accepted a position on the Advisory Board. Eighth from the right in the second row is Professor Quinming Luo, who is the Director of the Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics and the newest member of the Bioimaging category of the EBM Editorial Board.
My April 2007 trip to China stimulated me to check the percentage of our manuscript submissions that were coming from Asia and other parts of the world. The results are very interesting. From July 1, 2006, when I became Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine, until July 1, 2007, 33% of our manuscript submissions came from the United States and 33% came from Asia. Therefore, one can conclude that we have as many authors and readers in Asia as we do in the United States, and the opportunities for expansion of EBM in Asia are tremendous. I, therefore, shared my vision for this expansion at the Experimental Biology and Medicine Editorial Board meeting and Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine Council Meeting held at the EB meeting in early May 2007. The first two phases of the plan were the addition of EBM Editorial Board members and Associate Editors from Asia. We have begun phase 1 with the addition of Quinming Luo to the Editorial Board.
I can now announce that we have also begun phase 2 by the appointment of Professor Lin He as the co-AE of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Section of EBM. Professor He will be responsible for the manuscripts submitted in the area of Nutrition. Lin He is one of the most distinguished scientists in China. He is currently Professor of Genetics and Director of the Bio-X Center, and Vice Dean of the School of Life Science and Technology at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China. Relevant to this appointment, Lin is the team leader of Nutrigenomics, for the Institute for Nutritional Sciences of Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences. He is a Fellow of the distinguished Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor He has published over 200 peer reviewed articles and book chapters in the area of brain disorders with his focus over the past 10 years being largely in how nutritional genomics, and personalized nutrition, impact these neurologic problems. I welcome Professor He to the position of Associate Editor for Experimental Biology and Medicine. In Figure 2 Professor He is on the right; Professor James Watson, Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, on the left; and Professor C.C. Tan, one of the founders of Chinese Genetics, in the middle.
The third phase of my vision for EBMs international expansion is the selection of a site for an Asian EBM office. Over the next few months, I will be researching potential sites and leadership so that a plan can be presented to the SEBM Council for approval.
We have entered into a renaissance period for Experimental Biology and Medicine, part of which is establishing EBM as a leading international journal. Once we have a clear plan for expansion into Asia, I will then focus on an EBM expansion plan for Europe.
Editor-in-Chief
Experimental Biology and Medicine
