RBearchin JANUARY /FEBRUARY 1990 VOLUME 3, NUMBER 1 @Copyright 1990 by the American Chemical Society
Ed it orial Happy New Year With this issue, Chemical Research in Toxicology begins publication of its third volume. To accommodate the Journal’s growth and increased breadth of scope, we welcome Thomas Baillie, Michael Corbett, Robert Hanzlik, Thomas Harris, Anton Hopfinger, Laurence Hurley, Richard Loeppky, Michael Marletta, Christopher Michejda, Milos Novotny, and James Swenberg to the Editorial Advisory Board. The overall format of the Journal remains the same, but we have added a new feature that we are calling “ F O R U M for lack of a better name. Our intent is to highlight important fields of research from the viewpoints of several different investigators who may not necessarily share the same perspective. Several contributors will submit manuscripts and have the opportunity to review manuscripts from the other contributors before modifying their own. The manuscripts will then be published together. FORUM should be especially helpful for discussing emerging areas for which a consensus of opinion has not evolved and/or in which controversy exists. In one of the later issues of Volume 3, John Farber, Sten Orrenius, and Don Reed will discuss the role of calcium in cell toxicity. There are also changes in the Editorial Office in addition to its relocation. As stated in the editorial of the third issue of Volume 2, Fred Guengerich is now an Associate Editor. Fred’s proximity and extensive editorial experience will ensure continued high-quality reviews. The American Chemical Society added a FAX machine to our Editorial Office [ (615) 343-7534] for correspondence with reviewers and authors. We changed the review forms to make them compatible with FAX feed as well as to reflect the increased use of laser printers by referees. The average time from receipt to first decision is currently seven weeks for articles and five weeks for communications. This has been fairly constant during the lifetime of the Journal, but we’re hoping to improve turnaround a bit with the increased use of FAX. Coupling these improvements with quick editorial action and rapid typesetting by the American Chemical Society, we are able to publish rigorously reviewed, highquality, typeset manuscripts with the speed of a photooffset journal. The quality of the contributions published in Chemical Research in Toxicology is reflected by further adoption by abstracting services. We are now covered by 0893-228x/90/2703-0001$02.50/0
Chemical Abstracts, Current Contents, Reference Update, Current Awareness in Biological Sciences, and Excerpta Medica. Any journal lives by the good will of its authors and reviewers. We recognize the competition for leading-edge manuscripts, and we realize that people who review them have limited time to do so. We try not to take our authors and reviewers for granted. The referee base now stands at 600. If you would like to review for the Journal but you are not sure you are in our database, please call Celeste Riley at (615) 343-7328. The more experienced referees we have, the better we can spread the load. We have made a few modifications to the Instructions to Authors that are worth noting. The first has to do with the identification of hazardous chemicals and hazardous procedures. One might argue it is obvious that materials described in a journal called Chemical Research in Toxicology are hazardous. However, chemicals differ dramatically in their toxicity, and it is important to emphasize cautious handling for the most potent. Thus, we are asking authors to clearly identify such chemicals in the experimental section. The second modification is related to provision of analytical data. For new compounds, sufficient physical properties and spectral parameters should be described to permit unequivocal structural assignment. This should include C, H, N analysis when possible. For all compounds used for biological testing, some indication of purity must be provided. In addition, the method used to evaluate purity must be described. Finally, we’ve added some information about the size and appearance of structural formulas. Our recommendations are taken from a set of criteria developed by the editors of The Journal of Organic Chemistry. We are grateful to them for their leadership in this matter. We are pleased with the evolution of Chemical Research in Toxicology in its first two years and its reception by the scientific community. Since we can always be better, we welcome the input of our readers. If you have any ideas, we’d like to hear from you by mail, phone, or FAX. Lawrence J. Marnett Editor 0 1990 American Chemical Society
