Editorial Received: 22 January 2015
Accepted: 23 January 2015
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI 10.1002/psc.2763
Editorial With this Jubilee issue we celebrate the 20th birthday of Journal of Peptide Science which entered the world of scientific journals with its first bimonthly January/February issue in 1995. The aim and scope of the Journal, jointly owned by the European Peptide Society and the publisher John Wiley & Sons, were to serve the international community of peptide scientists and colleagues of neighboring fields including protein scientists as a suitable platform of scientific communication. The publisher, the executive committee of the European Peptide Society, all the editors and the members of the advisory board contributed with engaged dedication over the two decades to make Journal of Peptide Science a highquality journal worthy of support by the ever increasing peptide community with its plurality of scientific interests ranging from chemistry to structural biology and immunology. These main topics of interest are covered in this Jubilee issue by invited essays, reviews and research papers from esteemed peptide scientists of the international community. The Anniversary Issue starts with a historical memoir by John Jones dedicated to Jeffrey Young who as Chairmen of the small European Peptide Symposium Committee guided the formalization of the European Peptide Society and as Founding Chairman of this newborn society he initiated the details with Wiley for the establishment of the Journal of Peptide Science. An Essay of Steven Kent on ‘The critical role of peptide chemistry in the life Sciences’ competently discusses the new frontiers of peptide chemistry in protein sciences and thus the challenging research perspectives of the peptide community. The state of art in the various aspects of peptide research are covered by excellent and highly informative reviews on (i) advances in ligation methodologies (J. Wade et al.), (ii) structural properties of peptides and peptidomimetics (C. Toniolo et al.), (iii) biophysical properties of peptides (M. Castanho), and (iv) new peptide constructs for tumor therapy (A. Beck-Sickinger et al.). These reviews are accompanied by selected innovative research reports on new synthetic strategies (C. Becker et al.), structural studies of peptides (H. Wennemers et al.) and membrane proteins (F. Naider et al.), structure-function studies of vital peptide hormones (R. DiMarchi et al.), peptide constructs as tools in biochemical studies (J. Robinson et al.), peptidomimetics in drug design (D. Mierke et al.), new biomaterials (J. Martinez et al.) and peptide-based nanoparticles (S. Verma et al.). With this broad coverage of novel research directions, the issue is expected to guide and stimulate the peptide community into new frontiers of life science.
With an instinctive sense of pride, we all have witnessed in the last two decades a fascinating renaissance of peptides and peptidomimetics at the forefront of science from chemistry, chemical biology and innovative biomaterials to drug discovery as well reflected by the content of this Anniversary issue. It should therefore represent a strong invitation for peptide scientists to publish their highly qualified reports in the specialized journals of peptide chemistry and related fields and thus to optimize scientific communication between scientists in this field of research. This would avoid the currently large dispersion of peptide-related scientific work in renowned journals of more general topics of organic and bioorganic chemistry as well as of biochemistry, chemical and structural biology, and immunology, being blindly attracted by the Impact Factor, a bibliometric system that finds increasingly criticisms and scepticism by editorial boards of high ranking journals (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 9704 – 9706; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 4–6; Nature Cell Biology 2014,16, 1; Nature 2015, 517, 245). We are confident that at its 20th birthday the Journal of Peptide Science is at the beginning of a period of positive transition to a premier platform of scientific communication in peptide and protein chemistry, making 2015 another milestone in the Journal’s history. We have a highly dedicated team of Editors and Advisory Board Members working on and contributing to the Journal—their help is invaluable to reach this goal. As present responsible editors of the Journal of Peptide Science we express our deep gratitude to all the past and present editors, members of the advisory board and the hundreds of reviewers for their dedicated expert and conscientious work in assessing and improving the quality of the published scientific reports from the European, American, Asian and Australian peptide research community.
Luis Moroder Editor-in Chief Ulf Diederichsen Deputy Editor
127
J. Pept. Sci. 2015; 21: 127
Copyright © 2015 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Accepted: 23 January 2015
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI 10.1002/psc.2763
Editorial With this Jubilee issue we celebrate the 20th birthday of Journal of Peptide Science which entered the world of scientific journals with its first bimonthly January/February issue in 1995. The aim and scope of the Journal, jointly owned by the European Peptide Society and the publisher John Wiley & Sons, were to serve the international community of peptide scientists and colleagues of neighboring fields including protein scientists as a suitable platform of scientific communication. The publisher, the executive committee of the European Peptide Society, all the editors and the members of the advisory board contributed with engaged dedication over the two decades to make Journal of Peptide Science a highquality journal worthy of support by the ever increasing peptide community with its plurality of scientific interests ranging from chemistry to structural biology and immunology. These main topics of interest are covered in this Jubilee issue by invited essays, reviews and research papers from esteemed peptide scientists of the international community. The Anniversary Issue starts with a historical memoir by John Jones dedicated to Jeffrey Young who as Chairmen of the small European Peptide Symposium Committee guided the formalization of the European Peptide Society and as Founding Chairman of this newborn society he initiated the details with Wiley for the establishment of the Journal of Peptide Science. An Essay of Steven Kent on ‘The critical role of peptide chemistry in the life Sciences’ competently discusses the new frontiers of peptide chemistry in protein sciences and thus the challenging research perspectives of the peptide community. The state of art in the various aspects of peptide research are covered by excellent and highly informative reviews on (i) advances in ligation methodologies (J. Wade et al.), (ii) structural properties of peptides and peptidomimetics (C. Toniolo et al.), (iii) biophysical properties of peptides (M. Castanho), and (iv) new peptide constructs for tumor therapy (A. Beck-Sickinger et al.). These reviews are accompanied by selected innovative research reports on new synthetic strategies (C. Becker et al.), structural studies of peptides (H. Wennemers et al.) and membrane proteins (F. Naider et al.), structure-function studies of vital peptide hormones (R. DiMarchi et al.), peptide constructs as tools in biochemical studies (J. Robinson et al.), peptidomimetics in drug design (D. Mierke et al.), new biomaterials (J. Martinez et al.) and peptide-based nanoparticles (S. Verma et al.). With this broad coverage of novel research directions, the issue is expected to guide and stimulate the peptide community into new frontiers of life science.
With an instinctive sense of pride, we all have witnessed in the last two decades a fascinating renaissance of peptides and peptidomimetics at the forefront of science from chemistry, chemical biology and innovative biomaterials to drug discovery as well reflected by the content of this Anniversary issue. It should therefore represent a strong invitation for peptide scientists to publish their highly qualified reports in the specialized journals of peptide chemistry and related fields and thus to optimize scientific communication between scientists in this field of research. This would avoid the currently large dispersion of peptide-related scientific work in renowned journals of more general topics of organic and bioorganic chemistry as well as of biochemistry, chemical and structural biology, and immunology, being blindly attracted by the Impact Factor, a bibliometric system that finds increasingly criticisms and scepticism by editorial boards of high ranking journals (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 9704 – 9706; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 4–6; Nature Cell Biology 2014,16, 1; Nature 2015, 517, 245). We are confident that at its 20th birthday the Journal of Peptide Science is at the beginning of a period of positive transition to a premier platform of scientific communication in peptide and protein chemistry, making 2015 another milestone in the Journal’s history. We have a highly dedicated team of Editors and Advisory Board Members working on and contributing to the Journal—their help is invaluable to reach this goal. As present responsible editors of the Journal of Peptide Science we express our deep gratitude to all the past and present editors, members of the advisory board and the hundreds of reviewers for their dedicated expert and conscientious work in assessing and improving the quality of the published scientific reports from the European, American, Asian and Australian peptide research community.
Luis Moroder Editor-in Chief Ulf Diederichsen Deputy Editor
127
J. Pept. Sci. 2015; 21: 127
Copyright © 2015 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
