We are excited to launch the third member of the Molecular Therapy family of journals, entitled Molecular Therapy – Methods & Clinical Development. The journal will follow the online, open-access model of Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids, launched last year. The new journal will serve a critical role by providing a forum for important advances in methodology and technology development that do not fit easily into the scope of existing journals.
Prestigious prizes are most commonly awarded to scientists who have described fundamentally new scientific phenomena. However, an important subset of these prizes is awarded to acknowledge the discovery of groundbreaking methodology or technology. Examples of the latter include the development of recombinant DNA technology, the polymerase chain reaction, the generation of knockout mice by homologous recombination in mouse embryonic stem cells, and the reprogramming of somatic cells into pluripotent cells by the introduction of defined transcription factors. In fact, the development of novel methodology very often underlies important new discoveries in biology.
The field of molecular and cellular therapy is founded upon the development of new gene- and cell-based methods to cure patients of disease. Many of us struggle with the fact that most journals focus on the reporting of biological discoveries and often undervalue work that describes new methodology unless it is applied to an interesting biological question. This conundrum persists, despite the fact that the lasting impact of many studies often lies in their methodological rather than their biological aspects.
Although the development of novel therapeutics has its origins in breakthroughs in the laboratory, ultimately these breakthroughs require translation into protocols that can actually be used in patients. The clinical development of a new therapeutic concept is, thus, nearly as important as the initial discovery, because, otherwise the idea would lie fallow, trapped in the basic science laboratories around the world.
The goal of Molecular Therapy – Methods & Clinical Development is to provide a forum for top-quality novel methods and technology development, as well as significant improvements to established research techniques in basic, translational, and clinical cell and gene therapy. We also aim to provide a venue for translational and product development studies designed to refine cell and/or vector engineering, production or delivery following validation of a therapeutic strategy in preclinical models. This new journal hopes to capture the broad and burgeoning diversity of molecular and cellular therapies, and we have established an editorial board to meet this challenge. We are interested in important findings in “classical” gene therapy areas such as vector development and delivery and hope that the journal also becomes a place where methodologies from a diverse set of fields, including stem cell biology, bioengineering, and materials science, come together. By providing such a forum, we hope for increased synergy among these fields that should facilitate more rapid development of cell- and gene-based therapies.
In partnership with Nature Publishing Group, the Molecular Therapy – Methods & Clinical Development Web site will provide enhanced digital features and functionality that underscore the journal’s open science commitment. Its research will be open access, broadly accessible, searchable at the highest level, and equipped with digital and traffic analytics such that usage, reference, and user behavior can be understood. Molecular Therapy – Methods & Clinical Development will also launch in a mobile-optimized format, so our readers can access our content anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
In sum, we are excited about what Molecular Therapy – Methods & Clinical Development can offer. We fully expect that the journal will evolve over time so that it meets the needs of the community, and we encourage your involvement by the submission of papers, letters to editors, reviews, and commentaries. We certainly will be reaching out to members of our diverse community for help in the review of submitted papers and for solicitation of commentaries, reviews, and editorials. Finally, we look forward to helping foster a vibrant and broad community with a strong interest in methods and their clinical development and hope that this new journal will be the keystone in this mission.