RNCSB and Elsevier are delighted to announce their collaboration on the development and promotion of Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal (CSBJ), an open-access and online-only journal that was launched 2 years ago. During that period CSBJ published more than 130 articles relevant to both human therapeutic discovery and commercialization groups, as well as the industrial biotechnology sector — the two largest and fastest growing fields of innovation and research. In the first 9 volumes of the journal the focus was on topics such as microbial informatics, computational chemistry & drug discovery, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics as well as enzymology, structure and function of proteins, nucleic acids and other macromolecules.
Whether we consider the biopharmaceutical industry, focused on a myriad of therapeutic areas, or the industrial biotechnology sector, focused on development and implementation of bioprocesses for production of value-added products, it is very clear that the next 10 years of research will be dominated by interfaces – in this particular case – the interface between computational biology and model development, and cell biology with a heavy focus on genomics. Journals, conferences, and forums that continue to naturally integrate these disciplines and offer scientists, engineers, and technologists an opportunity to learn, critique, observe, peer-review and contribute within this framework of natural integration will be preferred. Why? In nearly all cases, the impact of development efforts and research trying to focus deeply in areas of deep sequencing, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, quantitative physiological characterization of bioprocesses, modeling and simulations of microbial metabolism, and so forth and so on, was minimal until the work was united and integrated with other efforts. In more simple terms, we have recognized that research teams and efforts that approach, from the very first experimental design, the challenge holistically will yield processes, understanding, identification of new pathways and proteins, or construction and selection of new strains and cell types, that meet the research objective. There is simply no other way to work. We anticipate that the CSBJ based on content, invited authors, editors, and projected future focus would be a preferred forum for the types of groups and efforts I'm describing above, where the natural integration of work streams in both the computational and -omics space is reflective of how cutting edge institutions are organized.
Clearly, the CSBJ is not the first journal to offer the suggestion that computational biology should be closely integrated with structural biology — the difference however is that the journal has started with that intention and advocates that as a platform for research. Many of the competing journals in the space are generally weighted towards either computation or experimentation. The CSBJ has the opportunity to not only offer equal weighting but focus on the tremendous innovations that the next 10 years will bring in the area of descriptive and predictive modeling to influence, design, and construct new proteins, protein networks, complex signaling pathways, and integrate those news design with the most prevalent “output” of genotype (and quite possibly the most telling phenotypic signature) — metabolism.
The papers published so far by CSBJ represent a comprehensive, broad range, yet thematically consistent collection of articles. We decided that a large fraction of the initial publications should be review publications of some sort (mini-review, invited review, etc.). I believe this is another data point highlighting the relatively unique approach of integrating computation and advanced experimental biology from the very inception of the journal. There are collections of groups that have been operating with this integration of the bench and laptop for some time, and not surprisingly, they have broader perspectives, opinions, and insights on the field that they would like their peers, of like-minded approaches, to review and consider. Furthermore, the journal has very successfully leveraged the internet, social media platforms, and has driven an interface that is appealing for researchers. This is made clear by both the social media pages (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, etc.) as well as number of views. As with any new forum/journal, the citations and more traditional measures of peer-review/publication success will follow. However, I must say, that I am of the opinion that the citation system will change radically in the next 10 years – the availability of information as well as digestion of smaller bits of information at higher frequencies will continue. I believe that the collaboration between RNCSB and Elsevier will allow CSBJ to stay on the cutting edge of information presentation.
Finally I would like to take the opportunity to express my thanks to a team of internationally renowned experts that have joined the board as Associate Editors working with me setting the directions of the journal. I am also delighted to have from the very beginning of the journal more than 40 dedicated and enthusiastic editorial board members that contributed decisively on the fast success of CSBJ. Last but not least, I would like to thank the reviewers and especially the authors with the adventurous spirit to publish at a new journal like CSBJ and also Elsevier for believing in our long-term success. We look forward to receiving your papers and moving the computational and structural biotechnology forward.