Editorial pubs.acs.org/crt
Goodbye Columbus: Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Editing CRT
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public and private consortias’ sequencing of the human genome. From scarcely knowing that DNA is the genetic material or appreciating what a protein looks like, we can now manipulate genomes to tailor proteins and even animals for specific purposes. Molecular events in cell signaling, carcinogenesis, and toxicity that once resided in black boxes are now well-understood, and this knowledge is being put to use in the development of diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. Within the context of these dramatic changes, the scientific impact of CRT has been profound. In the early years, a lot of the articles focused on the chemistry of DNA damage and its relationship to genetic mutation and carcinogenesis. This is one of the great examples of the power of chemistry to transform a field. Analytical chemistry provided methods that enabled the detection of DNA damage in cells, animals, and people with great sensitivity and specificity, while synthetic chemistry provided authentic standards of DNA adducts and adductcontaining oligonucleotides that could be incorporated into plasmids, shuttle vectors, and viruses for processing in host cells. This linkage of chemistry and biology provided a broad array of vectors containing DNA damage in a highly specific way that could be used to relate adduct structure to mutagenic potential. I feel this smorgasbord of chemical probes contributed mightily to the discovery of new enzymes of DNA replication and repair because for the first time, one could directly relate structure-to-function in tractable genetic systems. CRT continues to publish strong articles in DNA damage but has significantly broadened its portfolio to include mechanisms of cell signaling related to toxicity, systems approaches to classifying cellular responses to toxicants, molecular target identification, and nanoparticle toxicity inter alia. Dramatic advances in mass spectrometry, NMR spectroscopy, and gene expression analysis underlie many of these studies. A tremendous amount of chemical toxicology research goes on in the pharmaceutical industry, where it is critical to the elucidation of the chemical fate and the toxicological potential of drug candidates and their metabolites. CRT has become the go-to journal for the publication of much of this research. The field of computational analysis of these data for the purpose of predicting toxicological potential has emerged in parallel, and multiple reviews and perspectives have provided useful frameworks for developing these paradigms. CRT is also the only ACS journal that has spawned a new division from its activities. The idea for a Division of Chemical Toxicology was advanced at a CRT Editorial Advisory Board meeting, and the late Dick Loeppky scaled the mountain of bureaucracy required to achieve probational division status. The Division was transferred to permanent status after three years, and, as they say, the rest is history. The Division of Chemical Toxicology (TOXI) is a vibrant group that meets annually at the Fall ACS meeting to highlight exciting new research and mentor young faculty and students. It is a really fun group to be a part of, and the parallel activities of the Division and CRT
his is my last issue as Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Research in Toxicology; I am stepping down effective this month. For the past twenty-five years, I’ve had the pleasure and honor of working with a generation of scientists to highlight the application of chemistry to important toxicological problems. It has been a very successful effort that has helped change the way individuals design and execute studies in mechanistic toxicology. I am very grateful to the American Chemical Society for the opportunity and for the support they have given to the Journal over the years. I’m especially grateful to our colleagues in the journal editing group in Columbus, Ohio who do all the heavy lifting in posteditorial production. They are the true heroes of ACS Publications, dedicated, hard-working professionals who work with authors and editors to produce high-quality, easily accessible articles. I’ve not thanked them enough over the years for all they have done for CRT and me, so I am highlighting them in my title. When CRT began publishing articles in 1988, it was becoming clear that chemical approaches could provide unique insights into the mechanisms of toxicological events. It was also apparent that toxicology provides great problems of structure− function, stereochemistry, biomarker development, etc., with which to challenge synthetic, analytical, and physical chemists. Our startup coincided with a series of advances in technologies such as mass spectrometry, NMR spectroscopy, combinatorial and asymmetric synthesis, DNA sequencing, and gene expression profiling that would enable chemical toxicologists to tackle biologically relevant problems in cellular systems, animal models, and human samples. Thus, the timing of this new journal could hardly have been better. The scientific basis for CRT was strong, but its success was not assured. A community of authors needed to be convinced to submit good manuscripts, and a community of reviewers needed to donate their efforts to ensure the quality of those manuscripts. The magnitude of the challenge was demonstrated to me when we published the first issue. With the help of an outstanding Editorial Advisory Board, we had gathered, reviewed, and accepted a two-foot high stack of strong manuscripts. Since that was well before the advent of electronic publication, we packaged those manuscripts into a box, and shipped it to our colleagues in Columbus for copy-editing and typesetting. Six weeks later, I attended my first ACS Editors' meeting, and as is the custom, received the first bound issue of the journal. That big stack of manuscripts distilled to a journal issue of 77 pages, and that included the rather lengthy Instructions to Authors! We’ve come a long way from that first issue, and inspection of the latest volumes reveals a journal comprising numerous high-quality articles that describe a broad range of toxicological problems and approaches to solving them. One advantage of doing something for a long time is the opportunity to witness major breakthroughs that revolutionize the way we think about our world. In my lifetime, we have witnessed events from Watson and Crick’s elucidation of the structure of DNA and Sanger’s sequencing of insulin to the © 2012 American Chemical Society
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article on the Web three weeks after he submitted it to CRT for review. This is not unusual, and the gap between submission and publication is shrinking for all articles. It is now very often true that the longest delay in publication is the time a reviewed manuscript sits on an author’s desk waiting for revision. What will an electronic journal look like when it is no longer tied to paper? Our entire notion of a journal is based on the image of the printed version. A number of articles are grouped together by publication date then printed or uploaded to the Web with accompanying features that set the collection off: cover art, editorials, issue highlights, review articles, research articles, etc. The collection is then printed and shipped to the subscriber. This seems rather anachronistic, especially since most subscribers, including libraries, use the electronic version rather than the print version, and most readers discover articles through search engines. Print journals are archival products at this point. If print journals do not need to be made, will this historical model of the journal survive, and if not, what will replace it? The last several launches of ACS journals have been electronic-only products, but they use the issue-model typical of print journals. Perhaps the issue-model will survive with modifications because it serves as a convenient device to remind us that a certain collection of articles has been published and that we have read or at least seen them. In truth, we are using a hybrid model already because the publication date for an article is the date it is uploaded to a journal Web site, and the digital object identifier can be used to track and discover an article before it appears in a journal issue. So, perhaps the question of the future structure of journals is already being answered as electronic publishing evolves. The facility of the distribution of electronic journals has spawned the Open Access movement, which at its heart, states that all content should be freely available to anyone who wants to read it. The justification for this movement is that the cost of the research that created the content was paid for by taxpayers, private foundations, universities, or medical schools, not by journal publishers. The argument goes that since electronic publishing does not cost anything (or is a lot less expensive if journals do not have to be printed) it is easy to disseminate research articles freely to the public. Some years ago, the ACS estimated that if they eliminated all printed journals they would only save 15% of the cost of publication because most of the costs are in the reviewing and editing of manuscripts, i.e., in journal offices. This is especially true for journals that reject most of their submissions because they are spending time and money on manuscripts that will never be published. This is true even if manuscripts are triaged without review because somebody, usually a journal editor, has to read the manuscripts and make a decision about whether to consider them further. In addition to all of these editorial costs, the number of information technology staff at most major journal publishers has skyrocketed as the demands of authors and readers for high quality electronic journals have ratcheted up. These same costs exist at Open Access publishers; so, they charge a healthy publication fee to authors whose articles make it through the review process (∼$3000). The truth is that it costs real money to publish good journals, and it is only a matter of whether the reader pays (i.e., libraries) or the author pays. Most society publishers have evolved a hybrid system in which articles are made freely available over the Internet one year after initial publication. If authors want to make their articles immediately available, they can pay an open access fee. Typical open access fees at society publishers are ∼$1500, but
synergize to further advance chemical toxicology. Thus, CRT has not only highlighted exciting research in chemical toxicology, but it has contributed to training the next generation of its practitioners. The revolution that struck publishing, the digital revolution, has been equally dramatic in its impact as the revolution that struck science. I’d like to claim that I understood how big an impact the digital revolution would have on scientific publishing, but as Richard Nixon told John Dean “That would be wrong.” It is hard to predict the future, as the stock analysts who manage my retirement portfolio can tell you. I was confident that electronic publishing would make reviewing and publishing manuscripts easier, and that has certainly been true. In fact, the year after ACS turned on the electronic portal to journal offices, when submission of paper or electronic manuscripts was still optional, the editorial staff at CRT won a plaque for having the highest percentage of manuscripts submitted electronically to Columbus for typesetting (100%). But electronic publication has meant so much more to the scientific community than convenience in operations. It has fundamentally restructured how we communicate with each other, the information content of our manuscripts, and our use of new discoveries in planning research and teaching it to others. In other words, it has changed everything we do. I will not try to list all the features of digital publication that we now take for granted, but I will point out how it has leveled the playing field for scientists working around the world. When all manuscripts were published in print journals (in 1995 from the ACS’s perspective), the speed of communication was limited by the speed of the postal system. This constituted a huge advantage for scientists working in the U.S. and parts of Europe, where most manuscripts were published, because they could access information a few days after it appeared in journals. Not so for scientists in other parts of the world who were literally weeks behind the curve unless their libraries paid for airmail delivery of all their journals (which was a very expensive proposition). Today, it is not unusual to receive correspondence from readers anywhere in the world about a manuscript on the day it is uploaded on the Journal Web site. This is a terrific development that has truly globalized scientific research and unified the scientific community. Just look at the Editorial Advisory Board for CRT or any other ACS journal for evidence of this breadth and unity. The drive for faster publication has caused journal publishers and especially the ACS to shorten the time in which journal articles are composed and disseminated. First, there was As Soon As Publishable or ASAP articles. ACS uploads all articles on journal Web sites as soon as they have been edited and proofread by the authors. In many cases, this means the articles are published weeks before they appear in a print or electronic copy of the journal. Subsequently, ACS began uploading Just Accepted Manuscripts or JAMs that represent the digital copy of the accepted manuscript before any copyediting or proofreading is done. This shaved another 3−4 weeks off publication times. Recently, the talented staff in Columbus has made remarkable strides in reducing the time between the appearance of a JAM and ASAP publication. It is not unusual for an author to receive the galley proof of a manuscript one or two days after the JAM is mounted. If the author returns that galley proof quickly, the corrections are made and the ASAP article uploaded shortly thereafter. I received a note from one of our authors recently in which he pointed out that his Rapid Report (which have expedited reviews) appeared as an ASAP 2620
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reviewers’ suggestions are fairly considered and adequately addressed. Our authors and readers can judge the impact of the final product on their own research. I’m going to miss being an Editor, although I will not miss the work. Editing a journal is taxing and constant, but it provides a unique opportunity to affect the growth of a scientific discipline, to identify emerging areas of science, and to influence the careers of young as well as established investigators. I’ve enjoyed every bit of it. Editing also provides a continuous dialogue with other editors, staff, authors, and reviewers. CRT has been something of a family business since its beginning; new members have come, but few have left. Paul Hollenberg and I started as the only Editors in 1988 with the editorial assistance of Celeste Riley. When I moved to Vanderbilt in 1989, we added Fred Guengerich as an Editor, and then in 2000, Judy Bolton joined the editorial team. The journal continued to grow, and in 2002, Chris Bradfield became the fourth Editor with his Editorial Assistant, Anna Shen. Celeste Riley retired as Editorial Assistant in 2005 and was replaced by Stephen Doster as Assistant Coordinating Editor. Finally, Carol Rouzer became Managing Editor in 2007 and played a crucial role in the development of the very successful In-This-Issue and Spotlight features. Carol has written over 400 highlights during her tenure with the journal, and I’m sure she will appreciate the opportunity to take a vacation for the first time in five years. This exceptionally strong group of editors and staff has worked very well together, and in fact, Paul, Fred, and Judy will continue under the leadership of the new editor, Steve Hecht. Steve is one of the top contributors to CRT over the years and is an outstanding choice to lead its further growth. CRT is a relatively small journal, so there has been ample time to interact closely with authors and reviewers and especially members of our Editorial Advisory Board who have provided invaluable service helping us to identify new directions, adjudicate differences of opinion, and review manuscripts. I’ve received a number of nice notes from colleagues, and I thank you all for each of them. It is nice to know that the collective hard work of our group of editors was appreciated. I cannot say enough about how appreciative I am to all the authors and reviewers who sent their manuscripts and donated their time to build a new journal and support its growth. There would be no CRT without you. I’ve been asked quite a bit what I’m going to do with “all the free time I will now have.” I have not really decided yet, but I do know I will concentrate more on my research, and that will be my highest priority. This is absolutely the best time in history to be doing research. One can ask exciting and meaningful questions and answer them in a direct way because of the fantastic technology we have available. I’m fortunate to have a terrific research group and some really exciting projects underway. So, I hope to publish a few more papers each year, many of them in CRT. I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished in the first twenty-five years of publishing CRT. I genuinely believe we changed how research in toxicology is done and have planted seeds for future generations. The journal is in a very good place in terms of the breadth and quality of what it is publishing and has strong new leadership. My deepest thanks to all of you who have helped make it happen.
they come on top of page charges, color charges, etc., so that the total cost of publication can be quite high, frequently as high as publishing in an Open Access journal. The ACS does not make any of its content freely available after one year, a decision that sets it apart from most society publishers. The ACS does make author-distributed reprints available freely onrequest, but that is not the same thing as making the articles universally available after one year. However, the open access fee at ACS is only ∼$1000 for ACS members whose institutions subscribe to ACS journals. More importantly, ACS does not levy any page charges, color charges, submission charges, etc. So, most authors do not pay anything to publish in an ACS journal, and if they want their articles freely available immediately, it will only cost them $1000 if they are an ACS member. That is less than the page and color charges that other society publishers charge, and it represents a small fraction of the total cost of the research that is published. Since ACS adopted this ACS AuthorChoice mechanism, I have chosen it for all the articles I have published in ACS journals. I have published approximately 20 open access articles over 5 years for what it would have cost me to publish 7 articles in an Open Access journal. However, it seems that most authors who publish in ACS journals do not care about making their articles freely available because only a small percentage of them choose the AuthorChoice option for ACS journals or the equivalent at other society journals. One cannot think about the changes that have revolutionized scientific publishing without thinking of the Impact Factor. Did Eugene Garfield at the Institute for Scientific Information really understand the “impact” he would have when he developed this metric? I doubt it. The Impact Factor now dominates any discussion of the importance of a journal, the quality of a laboratory, and the target journals for submitting manuscripts for publication. Fifteen years ago, many publishers were scoffing at the imperfections of the Impact Factor, but now they all seem to be slaves to it. Journals annually advertise their Impact Factor the day after it appears, and authors compute the “impact factors” of their own papers. Research administrators demand that their faculty publish in high impact journals, which limits the choices that those faculty have for submission of their work. Of course, the irony is that most of these same administrators were unable to publish in those journals when they were faculty members. So, what’s the point of this screed? We all like to publish in high impact, general interest journals. There’s no doubt that papers published in them get read and cited. However, the editors of those journals are trying to identify the most novel contributions that might highlight new directions in a given field, so they only publish a very small number of articles. They may represent the sexiest work in a field, but they are not a reflection of the breadth and depth of that field. These are provided by general interest and specialty journals largely published by society publishers. These journals publish high quality (and yes, high impact) articles that describe the research of a broad range of authors. If one totals the citations to all this work, it is much higher than the citations to the limited number of papers published in journals with exceptionally high Impact Factors. Specialty journals, like CRT, publish the bulk of the solid and occasionally great work in a field and are the journals one sees cited in seminar and symposium presentations. We have worked really hard to make sure what we publish meets our high standards by soliciting an average of 3.5 reviews per article and by working with authors to ensure that the
Lawrence J. Marnett, Editor-in-Chief
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Editorial
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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