Chemical Biology & Drug Design 2006: Transition, Scholarship and Faith (2006)

On behalf of the Senior Editors, the Editorial Advisory Board, and the Editorial Management Team of Chemical Biology & Drug Design (CB&DD), I wish to thank all authors, reviewers and each of you who share with us a commitment to advancing innovative science, technology and medicine by promoting multidisciplinary chemical biology and drug design. In this Editorial, I would like to share a few thoughts on the topics of transition, scholarship and faith as related to what has been both a challenging and remarkable endeavor in launching CB&DD 2006. First, this year has marked significant transition for CB&DD as well as in my life. For the journal, it has been a time of inspiring a global recognition of CB&DD through key symposia and advertising campaigns as well as strategic building of its unique personality relative to the scope of its manuscript types (i.e., Editorials, Commentaries, Perspectives, Reviews, Research Articles, Research Letters. R&D Spotlights, R&D Tutorials, R&D Technology Forum, and Who's Who in Chemical Biology and Drug Design). I am indebted to Blackwell Publishers for their sustained strong support to my efforts as Editor-in-Chief. I also credit the success of 2006 to my outstanding editorial team of CB&DD Senior Editors and the CB&DD Editorial Advisory Board. Furthermore, I thank my dedicated CB&DD Management Team (especially Diane Horberry, Christine Molle, Justin Noehre, Soren Hemmingsen, Melanie Thomson, and Pernille Hammelsoe) for their oversight and support to stepwise progression of CB&DD manuscripts through Manuscript Central, production and, ultimately, to on-line and in-print publication. In synchrony with the launch of CB&DD, my life has witnessed milestone changes with respect to my family and in my career. My wife, Constance, and I have experienced our oldest son, Thomas, starting college, and our youngest son, Jonathon, starting high school. Although we accept that time is infinite in nature, it certainly seems to be passing by overly swiftly as we realize that our children have grown up in so many endearing ways. Furthermore, I embarked on a career change recently to join Pfizer Global R&D and accept a senior management position as head of chemical sciences at the Pfizer Research Technology Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I am still becoming acquainted with the massive technology and knowledge infrastructure within this multinational pharmaceutical super-company. Moreover, this opportunity has been exceptionally memorable in that I am able to work again with a plethora of former colleagues and special friends from my past drug discovery campaigns at Upjohn/Pharmacia and Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert (noting that both have been integrated into Pfizer Global R&D through corporate mergers over the past few years). Secondly, this year has marked the building of scholarship for CB&DD with respect to networking with outstanding academic, industrial and government researchers worldwide who have collectively provided extraordinary multidisciplinary expertise to guide and shape the growth of the journal. Notably, >200 manuscripts have undergone a rigorous peer-review process (i.e., acceptance, revision, and/or rejection). Two special thematic issues of CB&DD are advancing stepwise towards future publication in early 2007. They are entitled ‘Molecular Armamentarium of Chemical and Biological Medicines for the War on Disease’ and ‘Innovative R&D Technologies for Basic Research and Drug Discovery’. For next year, CB&DD will sustain a commitment to authors relative to a comprehensive scope of relevant topics for manuscript submission, including: (i) protein, peptide, peptidomimetic, nucleic acid, lipids, carbohydrate, and natural product chemical biology and drug design; (ii) receptor agonist/antagonist, protease substrate/inhibitor, and signal transduction modulator chemical biology and drug design; (iii) small-molecule diversity and synthetic methods important to investigate chemical space relationships to drug discovery; (iv) structure-based drug design, molecular modeling, virtual screening and related in silico chemoinformatics technologies; (v) NMR, X-ray crystallography, calorimetry and related biophysical technologies; (vi) therapeutic target proteomics, chemical genomics and molecular screening technologies; (vii) emerging chemical, biological and drug design concepts of significance to pharmacology, ADMET and drug delivery; and (viii) novel proof-of-concept ligands and breakthrough medicines. As also intimately related to scholarship, I encourage future authors to contribute to CB&DD R&D Tutorials with the aim of sharing both knowledge and vision for the benefit of students and young researchers. I have shared my views of chemical biology and drug design with respect to a R&D Tutorial entitled ‘Chemical Biology and Drug Design: Three-dimensional, Dynamic and Mechanistic Nature of Two Multidisciplinary Fields’ that was published earlier this year. It is important to foster such scholarship, and I further encourage industrial scientists to actively engage in academic mentorship and teaching. Throughout my career, I have been blessed with the opportunity to mentor and teach students, and I'm thankful for my current academic appointments at both the University of Massachusetts and the University of Massachusetts Medical School to be able to contribute in varying ways to undergraduate and graduate studies in chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology, and cancer biology. Thirdly, and finally, this year has marked a time of faith in being the Editor-in-Chief of CB&DD in many ways. Upon reflection, I sense that my editorial that was published in the inaugural issue of CB&DD (January 2006) captures this point quite nicely. In that editorial, I stated ‘Ultimately, it is with faith that this inaugural issue of CB&DD will inspire researchers worldwide to share their exciting work by way of publishing in the journal. To those authors who have committed their manuscripts in supporting this inaugural and forthcoming issues, I am genuinely thankful that their good works have been entrusted to CB&DD’. Indeed, I'm very pleased to report that the first 12 issues of CB&DD do mirror the spirited enthusiasm and commitment of both authors and reviewers towards building a dynamic framework and positive recognition of this journal as a rising star for Blackwell Publishing. I am humbly grateful for this and it has come with inspiration, steadfastness and prayer. I would have to say that being Editor-in-Chief has strengthened my resolve and insight as a scientist with faith. In this regard, a few weeks ago I was honored by being an invited speaker at a symposium hosted by St Michael's College (Vermont) that was focused on the theme ‘Science and Religion’. I was further enlightened by a magnificent keynote talk given by Victor Hruby, Emeritus Regents Professor at the University of Arizona and Honorary Senior Editor of CB&DD, who spoke about ethics at the interface of science and religion in both basic research and drug discovery aimed at the modification of human behavior. Overall, I believe that scholarship and good works is achieved by way of collaboration between science (as well as technology and medicine) and religion, and to the extent that there exist words of wisdom for interested readers of the journal, I am inspired to establish a new special section (perhaps, a forum dedicated to the interface of knowledge, reverence and truth to enable a dialogue of philosophical views by invited world thought leaders – tentatively, entitled ‘Words of Wisdom Forum’) for CB&DD 2007. In some related ways, my Editorial ‘Inimitable Elements of Innovative Drug Discovery: Quest for Knowledge, Passion for Life’ which was published in CB&DD earlier this year touches upon such scholarship and good works that many scientists share with enthusiasm. As closing remarks, I reiterate my gratitude to my CB&DD editorial and management teams for a successful launch and debut of the journal. It is my hope that each of you who read this Editorial will actively support the journal and share our scholarly quest to understand the wondrous mystery of chemical biology and drug design as we strive to do good works for the sake of humanity.