When the idea for ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science was just a concept at the American Chemical Society (ACS), I championed the need for a pharmacology and translational science journal within the ACS biological portfolio. I am absolutely thrilled to now have the opportunity to serve as the interim Editor-in-Chief of ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science! ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science (ACS PTSci) is an important and exciting component of the biological portfolio of ACS journals, filling an unmet need to disseminate the latest advances in basic and translational pharmacology across all therapeutic areas and molecular targets. Moreover, ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science provides a new venue for academic researchers, as well as those in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, to report new assays paradigms, new technologies, target-validation efforts, and human clinical trial monographs in one journal!
Launched in late 2018, ACS PTSci currently publishes 6 issues per year. My goal is to increase submissions significantly such that we publish 12 issues per year starting in January 2021. While GPCRs have been, and will continue to be, an area of concentrate for ACS PTSci, I am eager to further expand topical content to include ion channels, kinases, lipases, transporters, nuclear hormone receptors, and biologics, to name just a few. Furthermore, preclinical pharmacology related to epigenetics, immunology, oncology, cardiovascular biology, renal disease, metabolic diseases, and CNS diseases are highly desired. In addition, new advances in preclinical, IND-enabling, and clinical drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics now have a home at ACS. Finally, translational science related to novel biomarker strategies and clinical trial reports (both successful and unsuccessful Phase II/III trials) are appropriate for, and in high demand, at ACS PTSci.
ACS PTSci publishes non-peer-reviewed topical Viewpoints and Drug Discovery stories (the “real” story of how a drug was created/developed by the scientists in the trenches and in their own words), as well as peer-reviewed Perspectives, Reviews, Letters, and Articles. ACS PTSci is included in PubMed Central and SCOPUS. ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science has no charges or fees to submit a manuscript or to publish an article under the traditional subscription model (non-open-access). That means no author charges, page charges, processing charges, or color charges. A special issue on preclinical and clinical studies with psychedelics is coming later this fall!
I encourage all my colleagues working in the fields of molecular pharmacology and translational sciences in academia and industry to visit the journal homepage and view the amazing science in ACS PTSci. If you have already published with us, then thank you. I hope you send your next manuscript to ACS PTSci. If you had a great past experience, then please tell your colleagues. If you did not have a great experience, then try us again. As EIC, I promise to give your manuscript the highest level of attention, to provide rapid reviews that are fair and balanced, and to expedite the publication process. I am eager to build a community of molecular and clinical pharmacologists within the ACS and using ACS PTSci as a vehicle to disseminate the most important advances in the field.
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.