Summary
The Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling (JCCS) is evolving and becoming even more comprehensive than it has been until now. JCCS should not be mistaken for CCS which I created in 2002, is separate from JCCS, and has been managed since 2008 by another group. I describe below the scientific reasons for the changes that made us decide to expand the topics of JCCS.
Initially created as the journal of the International CCN Society (ICCNS), it now addresses all aspects of Cell Signaling and Cell Communication. It is the first journal offering such a wide scope in the Cell Signaling fields.
In addition to the JCCS matters, I also provide here a brief update on the 7th International Workshop on the CCN Family of Genes, which was held in Nice, October 2013.
This very successful meeting is rooted in the discovery of CCN1, CCN2 and CCN3 (initially designated Cyr61, CTGF, and Nov), later expanded with the inclusion of the WISP-1-3 proteins, now designated CCN4, CCN5 and CCN6. The field is evolving at a great pace, and the biological properties of the CCN proteins overlap with many essential signaling pathways controling key aspects of cell survival, behavior and death.
We welcome all readers to join the ICCNS and send their manuscripts to JCCS.
The 7th international workshop on the CCN family of genes
The major recent « novelty » in the organization of the ICCNS workshops was holding the 7th International Workshop in Nice from Oct 16th to 20th.
With this new addition to the venues for the CCN Workshop, we returned to France and thanks to the considerable efforts of Annick, we could enjoy very pleasant social aspects and a perfect organization.
From the viewpoint of the science presented, this CCN Workshop reached an outstanding level of quality, with excellent presentations in the sessions that covered all aspects of CCN biology, from genes to proteins and their complex array of regulatory functions in normal and pathological conditions.
One of the main goals of the CCN workshop is to provide conditions for fruitful scientific exchange between senior and young investigators. All the major leaders in the CCN field participated in this meeting and they made themselves available for discussion during the entire time of the meeting. As a result several collaborative projects were initiated at this meeting.
All participants agreed with the fact that the highly « familial » spirit of the CCN Workshop plays an important role for stimulating free exchange of information and enabling fruitful collaborative projects. The enthusiasm was such that everyone wished to convene again in Nice for the next ICCNS meeting.
As before, a detailed report on the CCN Workshop will appear in a forthcoming issue of JCCS, along with publication of the abstracts of the presentations.
This year, Professor Carlo Croce received the ICCNS SPRINGER award in recognition of his scientific merit and outstanding contribution to the field of cancer research.
Professor Croce delivered an inspirational presentation on the milestones that had paved his career since joining the Wistar Institute back in the early 70s, just after he earned a MD degree from the University of Rome with « Summa Cum Laude », the highest distinction. Professor Croce’s approaches to the causes and consequences of microRNA dysregulation in cancer has opened up quite promising avenues for efficient cancer treatment.
Discussions at the CCN workshop also highlighted again the need for reliable sets of reagents that would permit obtaining a comprehensive view of the expression of CCN proteins in various tissues at different developmental times and in different normal and pathological conditions. This would require not only sharing results but also the experience, fruitful or not, that we have had with the various reagents that are currently available.
Efforts that are being conducted along this line by several members of the ICCNS should permit us to achieve such a goal.
The Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling (JCCS)
Initially created as the official Journal of the International CCN Society, JCCS has now become a journal with a much wider audience. However, many researchers have indicated to us that they assumed the journal was restricted to CCN-related papers.
Therefore, it is our understanding that we need to do more in order to make it clear that the scope of JCCS is much wider. Andrew Leask and I have already worked considerably along this line in the past 2 years, striving to reinforce the inclusion of “pathology”–oriented publications. At the moment, the results have been encouraging and we believe that it is timely to capitalize on this effort and go one step further, with the introduction of two new sections.
After discussing the matter with the JCCS Editors and members of the ICCNS at the 7th CCN workshop we have all agreed that:
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i)
Andrew Leask will continue to be responsible for the Pathological and Translational Research Section. Andrew will also continue to manage the Bits and Bytes section.
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ii)
Satoshi Kubota will become the Section Editor in charge of molecular aspects of signaling, including all intra- and intercellular signaling (Molecular Signaling Section)
As stressed by Satoshi Kubota, « a variety of nuclear events and intracellular topology of signaling molecules are critical determinants of the outcome of cell communication. This is well represented by the fact that the same signaling molecule mediates a variety of different cellular events in a context-dependent manner. The mission of Satoshi Kubota as the Molecular Signaling Section editor is to collect, select and disseminate critical scientific information on these molecular events in the form of original articles published in JCCS.
Such an activity is expected to expand the scope of JCCS, while enhancing the comprehensive understanding of our audience about the signaling networks that support cell communication »
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iii)
David Brigstock will become the Section Editor in charge of Reviews, including short timely reviews, and more elaborate comprehensive reviews (Review section).
As proposed by D. Brigstock « JCCS will continue to publish review articles that summarize recent advances and discoveries, identify gaps and debates, and outline future directions in all aspects of cell signaling and communication. The primary role of the review Editor will consist in ensuring publication of well-written reviews so as to guarantee that JCCS continues its upward trajectory and that it is increasingly recognized by the scientific community as a source of valuable scientific information. This will be done in cooperation with authors and peer-reviewers to ensure that the review articles are timely and that they add an important body of knowledge to their respective fields. The review Editor will strive to ensure that review articles have a balanced content and are an accurate synopsis of the subjects discussed. This approach should result in an expansion of both the number and scope of reviews published in JCCS as this initiative moves forward. »
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iv)
Bernard Perbal will remain the Editor in Chief, responsible for all administrative communication with Springer and for ensuring that the JCCS publications satisfy the highest standards, according to the terms of the contract signed with Springer.
This proposal was unanimously welcomed as it is believed it will provide a new horizon for JCCS, and should consolidate our application for attaining an official Impact Factor attribution.
All modifications are expected to come into effect on the JCCS web site and in the printed version of the journal by the end of the year.
On this occasion, I would like to invite all our readers to participate in the Bits and Bytes section of JCCS, which is open to everyone’s comments, on any kind of scientific subject that you find interesting and wish to share with other readers. Along this line we would welcome your suggestions on how to boost this important section of our journal and make it more interactive.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank all our readers and the members of the JCCS Editorial for their support and participation in maintaining a high publication standard for our journal.
We are perfectly aware of the current scientific requirements wherein young investigators need to have their work published in well-ranked journals. Thus we face a classical catch-22 situation in that JCCS dépends on strong manuscripts to achieve a prominent impact factor, IF, and depends on a strong IF to attract further submissions. It is therefore essential that we keep inviting colleagues outside of the CCN field to submit manuscripts to JCCS, in such a way that this could definitely help us to reach this goal of an official and attractive IF.
I am pleased to report that JCCS is moving in a positive direction, with a very decent number of downloads (52747 in 2011); this has allowed us to calculate a non-official IF of 3.42 for the year 2011. Average peer-reviewing time runs about 30 days and time to online first publication is about 20 days post-acceptance.
In order to maintain this range of values, and then to go a step beyond, we need you to help us in promoting the JCCS.
With many thanks in advance for your participation,
Bernard Perbal
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to A. Perbal and H. Yeger for suggestions and editing.