In the Beginning: Reflections on the Genesis of Molecular Therapy (2010)

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the inaugural issue of Molecular Therapy, I would like to share my recollections of the events that led to the creation of the Journal, which occurred under my watch as the second President of the American Society of Gene Therapy.It all began with a series of phone calls from our colleague, George Stamatoyannopoulos, in the summer of 1996 to several of us working in the field of gene therapy. George proposed to get together to talk about creating a new professional society focused on gene therapy. He summoned us to a meeting at the Marriott Hotel in San Francisco, CA, on 29 October 1996 to discuss his proposal. I quickly realized there would likely be little discussion about the relative merits of creating a society when I received the meeting agenda, which was entitled “ASGT Board of Directors Meeting.” Besides George and me, the meeting was attended by French Anderson, Dusty Miller, Art Nienhuis, David Bodine, Y.W. Kan, Richard Mulligan, Inder Verma, Joe Glorioso, Mark Kay, and Savio Woo.I was the last to arrive at the Marriott conference room, and I saw George positioned at the head of a rectangular table with one empty seat on his right, which is where I sat—little did I know how symbolic the seating arrangement was. The next 6 hours were memorable as the group came together and essentially established the Society, with George leading us through the process. An early order of business was to elect a President. George was nominated, seconded, and elected with a unanimous vote. He then indicated the need for a President-Elect. I was nominated by my postdoctoral mentor, Richard Mulligan, and before I had a chance to say anything, I had the job. It was an interesting turn of events, because I had come to the meeting intending to question the value or timing, or both, of a gene therapy society but would leave carrying the responsibility to help establish it.George worked tirelessly over the next couple of years to create the basic foundation of the Society and, most important, to organize its first meeting, which was held in May 1998 in Seattle, WA. By all accounts, the first meeting was a spectacular success. Savio Woo was elected President-Elect. On the last day of the meeting, which was the first day of my one-year presidency, George informed me that one of my most important responsibilities was to establish a Society-affiliated journal. This was uncharted territory for me, although I was confident that Society members with more experience would be available to contribute.The first priority was to begin the process of identifying a publisher, which was harder than I had thought. The challenge was that the Society was new, with an uncertain future, and that the Board wanted the Journal to be published on a monthly basis from the very beginning. The easiest approach was to convince an existing journal such as Human Gene Therapy or Gene Therapy to affiliate with the Society, although this was clearly not going to happen, because the Society wanted to own and control its Journal. We identified a consultant and issued a request for proposals that drew four serious bids from established publishers. I asked Inder and Savio to help evaluate these proposals, which included interviews in New York City on 8 October 1998. A recommendation was made to the Board on 12 January 1999 to select Academic Press as our lead candidate and to begin negotiations. It was at this meeting that I realized the responsibility and challenges we had in the year ahead. We had only 11 months to successfully negotiate a contract with Academic Press, to create a journal, and to launch its first issue on 1 January 2000. In a panic, I organized a timeline and sent it to Savio and Inder. Savio's response was “a tight time line, but we have to move…let us do it!”We were fortunate that Betsy Nabel agreed to chair a search committee, which included Don Kohn and Alan Smith, to identify an editor-in-chief (EIC). Seven people applied, but none was qualified. The committee reached out to leaders in the community, and, with some gentle persuasion, Betsy and I convinced Inder Verma to consider the job. There was substantial support for Inder's appointment on the basis of his academic credentials; however, his plans for managing the Journal were controversial. He proposed to hire a full-time editor to manage most aspects, including solicitation of manuscript reviews and editorial decisions. Several on the Board and the Publications Committee were more comfortable with the traditional model, in which the EIC and Associate Editors control editorial decisions. Furthermore, the publisher was reluctant to commit resources for this position. Inder argued quite persuasively that a dedicated Managing Editor would be required if the Journal was to succeed in an aggressive launch that would involve monthly issues from the start. The Board eventually accepted Inder's proposal in mid-March 1999, and he accepted the position on 13 April 1999.With Inder on board, progress toward our January 2000 launch accelerated. He proposed to name the Journal Molecular Therapy so as to provide flexibility in its scope as the concept of the field evolved. I remember mentioning the Journal's name to Harold Varmus before his plenary talk at our 1999 meeting. His response was that “molecular therapy” could encompass almost any therapeutic strategy, which is exactly what Inder wanted to accomplish. The most important challenge, however, was to recruit a Managing Editor to help launch the Journal and nurture it through its formative stages. We conducted interviews in May of 1999 at the Society meeting in Washington, DC. Inder was able to recruit Fintan Steele, who had exactly what was necessary to do this very challenging job, including intelligence, drive, attention to detail, and knowledge of the field. The first issue of Molecular Therapy was published on 1 January 2000 as planned, with 11 papers.The success realized by Molecular Therapy in its early years was unprecedented for a society-affiliated journal, and the tradition of excellence started by Inder and Fintan has continued under the leadership of the second EIC, David Williams, and the Managing Editor for the past nearly 8 years, Robert Frederickson. The Journal leads the field in impact factor, which at approximately 6 places it 1–2 points ahead of the nearest competitors. In addition, the move to a new publisher, Nature Publishing Group, in 2007 and the implementation of a new business plan have allowed the Journal to flourish financially during a hard time for many journals. Nevertheless, as incoming EIC Malcolm Brenner points out in his inaugural Editorial in this issue, this is no time to rest on our laurels, for both great challenges and opportunities lie ahead.Happy birthday, Molecular Therapy! On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the inaugural issue of Molecular Therapy, I would like to share my recollections of the events that led to the creation of the Journal, which occurred under my watch as the second President of the American Society of Gene Therapy. It all began with a series of phone calls from our colleague, George Stamatoyannopoulos, in the summer of 1996 to several of us working in the field of gene therapy. George proposed to get together to talk about creating a new professional society focused on gene therapy. He summoned us to a meeting at the Marriott Hotel in San Francisco, CA, on 29 October 1996 to discuss his proposal. I quickly realized there would likely be little discussion about the relative merits of creating a society when I received the meeting agenda, which was entitled “ASGT Board of Directors Meeting.” Besides George and me, the meeting was attended by French Anderson, Dusty Miller, Art Nienhuis, David Bodine, Y.W. Kan, Richard Mulligan, Inder Verma, Joe Glorioso, Mark Kay, and Savio Woo. I was the last to arrive at the Marriott conference room, and I saw George positioned at the head of a rectangular table with one empty seat on his right, which is where I sat—little did I know how symbolic the seating arrangement was. The next 6 hours were memorable as the group came together and essentially established the Society, with George leading us through the process. An early order of business was to elect a President. George was nominated, seconded, and elected with a unanimous vote. He then indicated the need for a President-Elect. I was nominated by my postdoctoral mentor, Richard Mulligan, and before I had a chance to say anything, I had the job. It was an interesting turn of events, because I had come to the meeting intending to question the value or timing, or both, of a gene therapy society but would leave carrying the responsibility to help establish it. George worked tirelessly over the next couple of years to create the basic foundation of the Society and, most important, to organize its first meeting, which was held in May 1998 in Seattle, WA. By all accounts, the first meeting was a spectacular success. Savio Woo was elected President-Elect. On the last day of the meeting, which was the first day of my one-year presidency, George informed me that one of my most important responsibilities was to establish a Society-affiliated journal. This was uncharted territory for me, although I was confident that Society members with more experience would be available to contribute. The first priority was to begin the process of identifying a publisher, which was harder than I had thought. The challenge was that the Society was new, with an uncertain future, and that the Board wanted the Journal to be published on a monthly basis from the very beginning. The easiest approach was to convince an existing journal such as Human Gene Therapy or Gene Therapy to affiliate with the Society, although this was clearly not going to happen, because the Society wanted to own and control its Journal. We identified a consultant and issued a request for proposals that drew four serious bids from established publishers. I asked Inder and Savio to help evaluate these proposals, which included interviews in New York City on 8 October 1998. A recommendation was made to the Board on 12 January 1999 to select Academic Press as our lead candidate and to begin negotiations. It was at this meeting that I realized the responsibility and challenges we had in the year ahead. We had only 11 months to successfully negotiate a contract with Academic Press, to create a journal, and to launch its first issue on 1 January 2000. In a panic, I organized a timeline and sent it to Savio and Inder. Savio's response was “a tight time line, but we have to move…let us do it!” We were fortunate that Betsy Nabel agreed to chair a search committee, which included Don Kohn and Alan Smith, to identify an editor-in-chief (EIC). Seven people applied, but none was qualified. The committee reached out to leaders in the community, and, with some gentle persuasion, Betsy and I convinced Inder Verma to consider the job. There was substantial support for Inder's appointment on the basis of his academic credentials; however, his plans for managing the Journal were controversial. He proposed to hire a full-time editor to manage most aspects, including solicitation of manuscript reviews and editorial decisions. Several on the Board and the Publications Committee were more comfortable with the traditional model, in which the EIC and Associate Editors control editorial decisions. Furthermore, the publisher was reluctant to commit resources for this position. Inder argued quite persuasively that a dedicated Managing Editor would be required if the Journal was to succeed in an aggressive launch that would involve monthly issues from the start. The Board eventually accepted Inder's proposal in mid-March 1999, and he accepted the position on 13 April 1999. With Inder on board, progress toward our January 2000 launch accelerated. He proposed to name the Journal Molecular Therapy so as to provide flexibility in its scope as the concept of the field evolved. I remember mentioning the Journal's name to Harold Varmus before his plenary talk at our 1999 meeting. His response was that “molecular therapy” could encompass almost any therapeutic strategy, which is exactly what Inder wanted to accomplish. The most important challenge, however, was to recruit a Managing Editor to help launch the Journal and nurture it through its formative stages. We conducted interviews in May of 1999 at the Society meeting in Washington, DC. Inder was able to recruit Fintan Steele, who had exactly what was necessary to do this very challenging job, including intelligence, drive, attention to detail, and knowledge of the field. The first issue of Molecular Therapy was published on 1 January 2000 as planned, with 11 papers. The success realized by Molecular Therapy in its early years was unprecedented for a society-affiliated journal, and the tradition of excellence started by Inder and Fintan has continued under the leadership of the second EIC, David Williams, and the Managing Editor for the past nearly 8 years, Robert Frederickson. The Journal leads the field in impact factor, which at approximately 6 places it 1–2 points ahead of the nearest competitors. In addition, the move to a new publisher, Nature Publishing Group, in 2007 and the implementation of a new business plan have allowed the Journal to flourish financially during a hard time for many journals. Nevertheless, as incoming EIC Malcolm Brenner points out in his inaugural Editorial in this issue, this is no time to rest on our laurels, for both great challenges and opportunities lie ahead. Happy birthday, Molecular Therapy!