The Experiment Was a Success: Celebrating a Milestone in MTNA's Existence (2017)

In science, every good experiment is designed to test a hypothesis. We can extend this principle to scientific journals as well. Five years ago, several of us in the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) hypothesized that a sibling journal to Molecular Therapy that was more specifically focused on oligonucleotide and nucleic acid therapeutics would find a niche in the broader community. We also hypothesized that such a journal would best serve the global scientific community if it were open access. We tested these hypotheses by launching the online-only open access journal Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids or MTNA in 2012. The experiment began slowly with a handful of submitted papers, but has proven to be quite successful now in this sixth year. We are about to publish the 400th manuscript and we have earned a very respectable impact factor of 5.0. Given the success of this first experiment, ASGCT and its editorial leadership subsequently used the launch of MTNA as the model for two new open-access siblings, Molecular Therapy – Methods & Clinical Development and Molecular Therapy – Oncolytics, both launched in 2014 and both equally embraced by the relevant target audience. In essence, submission to Molecular Therapy now constitutes submission to the journal group, and, should a paper be deemed of insufficient general interest or impact for the flagship journal, publication in one of the siblings will be considered. MTNA got its launch through the previous ASGCT contract with Nature Publishing Group. During the first year, nearly all of the submissions came from transfers of articles originally submitted to Molecular Therapy. The quality of these papers was excellent, eventually leading scientists to submit directly to MTNA. What our journals offer the scientific community is a rapid turnaround for review and acceptance for publication. As the number of submissions has grown, we have brought on board several deputy editors to assist with the workload of soliciting reviewers and making decisions on papers. This fall, ASGCT contracted publishing of its journal portfolio to Cell Press. Thus far, the transition has been seamless. We have already benefitted from their more compact organizational structure as well as their marketing skills. As the first editor-in-chief for MTNA, I am extremely pleased by the response we have had in terms of quality submissions and the global appeal of the journal during its first 5 years. I especially enjoy looking through the table of contents for each issue and witnessing the diversity of nucleic acid applications in science and medicine. My vision for the future of the journal is to use it as a platform for special-topic issues and even small focused scientific conferences. I expect that the quality of submissions and acceptances will continue to be outstanding. Good science requires global participation in the publishing process. I envision some changes to enhance the value of the journal to the nucleic acids therapeutics research community. We continue to explore the concept of a rapid-reports section wherein submitted scientific letters or short articles can be published within a month or so of submission. I also envision soliciting more commentaries on articles published in MTNA and other related journals. We will aim to further expedite publication to capture timely, hot topics in the field. Given the increasing number of nucleic acids entering clinical trials, we envision a section of the journal being devoted to the clinical status of nucleic acid therapeutics. I, along with the other editors and deputy editors of the Molecular Therapy stable of journals, look forward to seeing the 500th publication in the journal. We will aim to have a special award for the authors of this paper. I want to personally thank all the reviewers and deputy editors who have done such a wonderful job to make MTNA a successful experiment.