Welcome New Editorial Board Members! (2018)

Dear Reader, The inauguration of a new volume has always been a special moment for many people, not only for those at the journal production core, but also for our many authors, reviewers, as well as our readers worldwide. It is a special experience that mixes satisfactory completion of a successful volume with the excitement associated with the launch of a new one. Starting a new volume also involves some concerns because it is a journey to partially unknown territories. The recently completed Volume 57 (2017) offers high quality articles in a broad spectrum of topics, which gives all ICS members good reasons to be proud of their journal. The journal has maintained its international stature, high reputation, respectable impact and immediacy factors, as well as growing enthusiasm and confidence among the Guest Editors and invited authors. Our Guest Editors deserve much of the credit for this success story. To demonstrate our gratefulness we have sent them a symbolic token of appreciation or awarded it in person whenever we had an opportunity to meet them in person (Figure 1). By inviting excellent authors from a selected group of leading scientists in a given field, the Guest Editors have successfully highlighted and enhanced their specific area of research. Consequently, the IJC has become a major player in the arena of chemistry journals and its future looks even brighter. Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn receives a token of appreciation for his service as a Guest Editor together with Mihail Barboiu, of their double-issue on Constitutional Dynamic Systems, 1–2/2013. Table 1 lists the 10 most-accessed articles during 2017. With the end of 2017 we have completed our 8th year with Wiley-VCH and I would like to thank all members of the Editorial Board and International Advisory Board who had served the journal for so many years. They all deserve much credit for the successful transformation of the journal during these years. It is also my pleasure to welcome and introduce the seven new Editorial Board members (Figure 2). Authors Titles Ref. J.-P. Jones, G. K. S. Prakash, G. A. Olah Electrochemical CO2 Reduction: Recent Advances and Current Trends 2014, 54, 1451 C. Thiehoff, Y. P. Rey, R. Gilmour The Fluorine Gauche Effect: A Brief History 2017, 57, 92 K. C. Nicolaou, S. Rigol The Evolution and Impact of Total Synthesis on Chemistry, Biology and Medicine 2017, 57, 179 Y. S. Jung, D. Y. Oh, Y. J. Nam, K. H. Park Issues and Challenges for Bulk-Type All-Solid-State Rechargeable Lithium Batteries using Sulfide Solid Electrolytes 2015, 55, 472 M. Morita, S. Kojima, M. Ohkubo, H. Koshino, D. Hashizume, G. Hirai, K. Maruoka, M. Sodeoka Synthesis of the Right-Side Structure of Type B Physalins 2017, 57, 309 S. Müller, T. Cañeque, V. Acevedo, R. Rodriguez Targeting Cancer Stem Cells with Small Molecules 2017, 57, 239 H.-U. Reissig, D. B. Werz Chemistry of Donor-Acceptor Cyclopropanes and Cyclobutanes [Guest Editorial] 2016, 56, 367 J. K. Barton, R. M. B. Silva, E. O'Brien Redox Signaling through DNA 2016, 56, 705 S.-J. Lee, S.-I. Pyun, S.-K. Lee, S.-J. L. Kang Fundamentals of Rotating Disc and Ring-Disc Electrode Techniques and their Applications to Study of the Oxygen Reduction Mechanism at Pt/C Electrode for Fuel Cells 2008, 48, 215 J. G. West, E. J. Sorensen Development of a Bio-Inspired Dual Catalytic System for Alkane Dehydrogenation 2017, 57, 259 New members of the IJC Editorial Board. Prof. Ashraf Brik was born in Israel in 1973, received his BSc in Chemistry from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (1996), MSc in Organic Chemistry from the Technion (1998) and PhD in Bioorganic Chemistry (2001) from the Technion (with Ehud Keinan and Philip E. Dawson). In 2002–2006 he was a Research Associate in with Prof. Chi Huey Wong at The Scripps Research Institute. In 2007 he joined the Department of Chemistry at Ben-Gurion University, was promoted to an Associate Professor in 2011 and became Full Professor in 2012. In 2015 he moved to the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion. Brik is well known for developing synthetic chemical approaches to post-translationally modified proteins for biochemical, biophysical and functional analyses. His list of awards includes the 2011 ICS prize for the Outstanding Young Scientist, the Bessel Award of the Humboldt Foundation, the 11th Hirata Award, the Teva Award for Excellence in memory of Eli Hurvitz, the Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award in Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry and the Henry Taub Prize for Academic Excellence. Prof. Micha Fridman received all his degree in Chemistry from the Technion, including MSc and PhD (2005) under the supervision of Prof. Timor Baasov. Following 3 years of post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Daniel Kahne at the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Harvard University (2005–2008), he joined the School of Chemistry at Tel-Aviv University and in 2016 was promoted to Associate Professor. His research focuses on the exploration of novel approaches and concepts for the development of antimicrobial agents. His list of awards includes the Wolf Foundation Award for Excellence for Graduate Student, the ICS Prize for an Excellent Graduate Student, the Rothschild Foundation Fellowship and the Hershel Rich Innovation Award. Prof. Assaf Friedler was born in Haifa in 1971, received his PhD in peptide chemistry and medicinal chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2000), and then was a postdoc with Prof. Alan Fersht at the MRC for protein engineering at Cambridge, UK, studying the biophysics of protein-protein interactions (2000–2004). In 2004 he joined the institute of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in 2010 was promoted to Associate Professor. In 2010–2015 he served as Head of the School of Chemistry at the Hebrew University. Since 2015 he is Chairman of the central student admission committee of the university and since 2016 he is Vice-Rector of the Hebrew University. His major research interests are quantitative biophysical studies of protein-protein interactions, intrinsically disordered proteins, peptide chemistry and medicinal chemistry. He won a starting grant from the ERC, the 2008 ICS prize for the Outstanding Young Scientist, the rector prize for an excellent researcher and teacher at the Hebrew University and the Sir Zelman Cowen prize. Prof. N. Gabriel Lemcoff was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1969, immigrated to Israel in 1991 and obtained his PhD (2002) with Prof. Benzion Fuchs in Tel Aviv University. He was a Post-doc with Prof. Steven C. Zimmerman at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in 2004 joined the chemistry department at Ben-Gurion University. He served as Head of the chemistry department (2012–2016) and was one of the founders of the “Marie Curie” chemistry program for gifted High School students. He focuses on olefin metathesis and single-chain collapse of polymers. He has pioneered the use of Hoveyda-Grubbs type sulfur-chelated benzylidene ligands to make latent pre-catalysts, which can be activated by external stimuli, such as heat or light. He applied this methodology for selective organic synthesis, mechanistic studies and 3D printing of cross-linked polymers. He used selective wavelength activation of the metathesis reaction to achieve orthogonal chromatic pathways to synthesize several organic chemistry scaffolds. Using organometallic complexes of rhodium, iridium and nickel he achieved single-chain collapse of polymers that show new physical and catalytic properties. Prof. Yitzhak Mastai was born in Tel Aviv in 1966, obtained his BSc in Physical Chemistry from Bar-Ilan University (1989) and PhD from The Weizmann Institute of Science (1999) with Prof. Gary Hodes, working on nanomaterial synthesis. In his 3 years of postdoc research with Markus Antonietti and Helmut Cölfen at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, he worked on biomimetic chemistry and chiral polymers. In 2003 he joined the Chemistry Department at Bar Ilan University, and currently he is a Professor of Nanotechnology and Chemistry, leading the Chirality Nanoscale laboratory. His earlier interests include nanomaterial synthesis, especially sono-electro and chemical synthesis of semiconductors, fullerene-like nanoparticles and nanomaterial characterization. His current research focuses on nanoscale chirality, synthesis and analysis of chiral nano-surfaces, and chiral self-assembled monolayers and polymeric chiral nanoparticles. He has published over 120 research articles, three books and many book chapters on various aspects of nanomaterials and materials science. Prof. Ed Narevicius was born in Vilnius, Lithuania (1973) and began his career in science by winning the first place in two all-Soviet Union Chemistry Olympiads for high school students (1989–1990). He then immigrated to Israel, earned a BSc summa cum laude in chemistry and PhD (2002 with Prof. Nimrod Moiseyev), all from the Technion. In 2000–2005 he was a senior scientist in OpTun Inc., an optical telecommunications company, where he invented and patented optical switching devices. In 2005–2008 he was a postdoc with Mark G. Raizen at the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2008 he joined the Chemical Physics Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science. His experimental demonstration of low temperature physics and chemistry has attracted much worldwide attention. At low temperatures wavelike properties of atoms and molecules start dominating reaction dynamics, and classically forbidden phenomena such as tunneling through potential barriers become the dominant reaction mechanisms. He was the first to observe a sharp increase in the reaction rate because of quantum effects at temperatures reaching 0.01 K. In order to achieve this goal he developed a completely new approach to experimental cold chemistry. In addition, his group has demonstrated a moving magnetic trap and used supersonic beams to generate ensembles of cold and very fast paramagnetic atoms or molecules. His group loaded them in a 3D moving magnetic trap and brought them to rest in the laboratory frame of references without losses. Ed won numerous awards including the 2014 ICS prize for the Outstanding Young Scientist. Prof. Sharon Ruthstein was born in Israel, earned her BSc in Chemical Engineering summa cum laude from the Technion and PhD (2008) with high honors with Daniella Goldfarb at the Weizmann Institute. Following an EMBO postdoc research with Sunil Saxena at the University of Pittsburgh she joined the Department of Chemistry at Bar Ilan University (2011) and established three labs: a magnetic resonance spectroscopy lab equipped with three CW/Pulsed EPR spectrometers, a wet biochemistry/molecular biology lab and a 64Cu(II) radioactive lab. Her group utilizes various spectroscopic methods together with biochemistry and molecular biology work to resolve cellular metal transfer mechanism in vitro and in cells. She uses the knowledge gained on each step of the copper cycle in eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems to develop new biomarkers and therapeutic agents. She has won numerous competitive research grants, and her list of awards includes the Eshkol and Wolf Scholarship, JEOL prize, EMBO and AAUW fellowships, the Krill prize, and the 2017 ICS prize for the Outstanding Young Scientist. I welcome all new Editorial Board members and I am sure that they will significantly influence the future course of the journal in the near future. We look forward with excitement to the upcoming issues of 2018–2019, which will cover a broad spectrum of topics, including Cucurbiturils and Related Cavitands, Total Synthesis with Gold, Nonlinear Chemical Dynamics, Functional Polymeric Particles, Window to Dutch Chemistry, Aggregation Induced Emission, Pillararenes, Rosarium Philosophorum on Chemical Biology, as well as two special issues on Retucular Chemistry and Metal-Directed Assembly, honoring the 2018 Wolf Prize Laureates in Chemistry. Although most of these topical issues are initiated by the Editorial and Advisory Boards, I invite you, the reader, to take part in this exciting process. I encourage you to approach me or any of the Editorial Board members for any idea you might have, any topic that you think should be highlighted by a special issue, any proposal of Guest Editors, etc. As the official journal of the Israel Chemical Society the IJC covers various topics, such as Conference Reports, Essays and Spotlight on various institutions. Any idea about such articles would be highly appreciated. Examples for such articles were published recently, including the 82nd Annual Meeting of the ICS,1 the 6th Angewandte Symposium,2 the ICS Symposium Honoring Wolf Prize Laureate Robert G. Bergman,3 and the 5th International Conference on Cucurbiturils.4 Finally, in addition to thanking the Guest Editors, contributing authors, referees and Board members, I wish to thank very much the publishing experts at Wiley-VCH, including Publisher Dr. Brian Johnson, Editorial Assistant Josefa Fernández, Production Manager Denis Ott, Marketing Manager Monika Silz and Marketing Executive Gabriela Kraft. I wish you an enjoyable year of stimulating reading,