Dear Readers,
The eJIFCC has become an increasingly recognized journal in the past years greatly due to the dedicated efforts of the former Editor-in-Chief Professor Gábor L. Kovács who managed to recruit numerous outstanding guest editors, hence releasing high quality thematic issues. Furthermore, thanks to his continued perseverance the journal is currently indexed on PubMed Central. In addition - as we have all experienced - the image of the eJIFCC has been considerably refurbished resulting in an outstanding and attractive outfit in recent years. For further promoting our visibility, we are currently in the process of uploading journal issues prior to 2008 onto PubMed Central.
My intention is also to carry on with thematic issues, but at the same time there is an increasing need to publish research articles and free communications. Most likely because of the enhanced visibility of the eJIFCC, we are experiencing a definite increase in the number of submitted manuscripts. As anticipated, this has also resulted in rejection of manuscripts that do not meet the scientific requirements as judged by the peer-review process.
Articles in this maiden issue of 2018 will definitely be of interest to all practicing laboratory specialists. The topics range from molecular testing by next generation sequencing via the investigation of leptin polymorphism in rheumathoid arthritis and studying hematological parameters in HIV infected patients to a concise document of the clinical chemistry curriculum for residents in laboratory medicine. The eJIFCC also publishes Short Communication, Letters, and Book Reviews - this is also well illustrated in this present issue.
These days the unprecedented rise in the number of scientific journals makes it very difficult to dig out what really deserves attention. All of us obtain on a daily basis dozens of ‘greetings’ from many predator journals sometime bearing names very similar to already existing established scientific journals, thus, for a senior scientist just to manage the e-mails requires a part time job. I am grateful to authors who contributed with their manuscripts, as well as to those colleagues who expedited the peer-review process, typically within a short turnaround time.
As the director of a large clinical laboratory at the University of Debrecen, Hungary (labmed.hu) for many years, I find the eJIFCC a useful periodical that presently reaches a large audience and is accessible to all IFCC member societies. I sincerely hope that it will be followed by a global readership and we also encourage our readers to submit scientific work for potential publication.
I am looking forward to this challenging task and to serve the laboratory medicine community as the newly appointed editor of the eJIFCC and as a member of the Communications and Publications Division of the IFCC.
Debrecen, Hungary - March 15, 2018
János Kappelmayer