Dear Reader,
Welcome to the final issue of Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy for 2021.
I wish to reflect on this year’s achievements, and to thank all those who have contributed their time and effort to guarantee the quality of the content published in the journal.
To date, in 2021, over 50 articles have been published. The most popular of these in terms of downloads from SpringerLink have been:
Current and Emerging Clinical Treatment in Mitochondrial Disease. Tinker, R.J., Lim, A.Z., Stefanetti, R.J. et al. Mol Diagn Ther 25, 181–206
Evaluating Infectious, Neoplastic, Immunological, and Degenerative Diseases of the Central Nervous System with Cerebrospinal Fluid-Based Next-Generation Sequencing. Tsamis, K.I., Sakkas, H., Giannakis, A. et al. Mol Diagn Ther 25, 207–229
Luminal Breast Cancer: Risk of Recurrence and Tumor-Associated Immune Suppression. Pellegrino, B., Hlavata, Z., Migali, C. et al. Mol Diagn Ther 25, 409–424
System-Wide Pollution of Biomedical Data: Consequence of the Search for Hub Genes of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Without Spatiotemporal Consideration. Sharma, A., Colonna, G. Mol Diagn Ther 25, 9–27
Leveraging the Fragment Length of Circulating Tumour DNA to Improve Molecular Profiling of Solid Tumour Malignancies with Next-Generation Sequencing: A Pathway to Advanced Non-invasive Diagnostics in Precision Oncology?. Underhill, H.R. Mol Diagn Ther 25, 389–408
Treatable Mechanisms in Asthma. Cazzola, M., Ora, J., Cavalli, F. et al. Mol Diagn Ther 25, 111–121
The high quality of content published in Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy has been reflected in the most recent impact factor of 4.074 and CiteScore™ of 6.3. Further, Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy has published content in a timely manner, with an average time from submission to first decision of 14 days.
The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to present many challenges and I would like to thank all who have contributed to ensuring the journal has thrived despite the ongoing issues.
I would like to start by thanking the authors of the articles published in Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy over the course of 2021. The enthusiasm of all authors for their chosen fields and their willingness to contribute content to the journal are crucial for its continued success.
The quality of published articles is also testament to the diligence of the peer reviewers. I would like to acknowledge the following individuals who acted as reviewers for Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy in the last 12 months:
Adam Abate, USA
Mustapha Abubakar, USA
Animesh Acharjee, UK
Chiara Agnoletto, Italy
Sudhir Agrawal, USA
Alexandre Alanio, France
Guillermo Aquino-Jarquin, Mexico
Mehdi Arbabi Ghahroudi, Canada
Sylvia L. Asa, Canada
Tester F. Ashavaid, India
Chun Hang Au, Hong Kong, China
Rosa Ayala, Spain
Asfar Azmi, USA
Ulrike Bacher, Switzerland
Aditya Bagrodia, USA
Nathanael G. Bailey, USA
Leonora Balaj, USA
Leomar Ballester, USA
Christian Barro, USA
Aaron Beasley, Australia
Gregory J. Berry, USA
Antonio Biondi, Italy
André Birgy, France
Gal Bitan, USA
Jorge C. G. Blanco, USA
Francisco Borrego, Spain
Veronika Borutinskaite, Lithuania
Constança F. P. C. Britto, Brazil
Diana I. Brixner, USA
Luca Campebel, France
F. David Carmona, Spain
Hiu Ting Chan, Japan
Aadel A. Chaudhuri, USA
Huan Chen, China
Yugo Chisaki, Japan
Rob Collin, the Netherlands
Curdin Conrad, Switzerland
Valeria Conti, Italy
Luis Antonio Corchete, Spain
Christopher L. Corless, USA
Lynsey Cree, New Zealand
Charbel Darido, Australia
Clara Dees, Germany
Klaus-Peter Dieckmann, Germany
Nicolas Dumaz, France
Eric Dumonteil, USA
Yogesh Dwivedi, USA
Frank Emmert-Streib, Finland
Dietmar Enko, Austria
Stepan M. Esagian, Greece
Henrik Falhammar, Sweden
Luo Fang, China
Harriet Feilotter, Canada
Renata Finelli, USA
María D. Flores-Chavez, Spain
Uta Flucke, the Netherlands
Lewis E. Fry, UK
Guoliang Fu, UK
Cristina B. García, Spain
Vassilis Georgoulias, Greece
Elena Gonzalez-Muñoz, Spain
Albert Grinshpun, Israel
Yueqing Gu, China
Allan J. Guimarães, Brazil
Peter Hagedorn, Denmark
Ferry Hagen, the Netherlands
Joelle A. Hallak, USA
Dora Hammerl, the Netherlands
Alan H. Handyside, UK
Alexandre Harlé, France
Steffen Heegaard, Denmark
Ellen Heitzer, Austria
Kevin A. Henry, Canada
Matthew I. Hiskens, Australia
Tham H. Hoang, USA
Marco H. Hofmann, Austria
Clive Hoggart, UK
Navin Horthongkham, Thailand
Shuiying Hu, USA
Natalia Issaeva, USA
Moriya Iwaizumi, Japan
Iyare Izevbaye, Canada
Christopher M. Jackson, USA
Anders Jakobsen, Denmark
Edward J. Jarman, UK
Angie C. Jelin, USA
Carmen Jerónimo, Portugal
Zi-Bing Jin, China
Harm H. Kampinga, the Netherlands
Min-Jong Kang, USA
Antoine E. Karnoub, USA
Vera Kemp, the Netherlands
Nadine Kerr, USA
Mouhamad Khouja, Germany
Myungshin Kim, Republic of Korea
Deniz Kirac, Turkey
Susanne Klein-Scory, Germany
Susanne Kohl, Germany
Christos K. Kontos, Greece
Milena Kordalewska, USA
Sachin Kumar, India
Pappanaicken R. Kumaresan, USA
Elena Lastraioli, Italy
Nani M. Latar, Malaysia
Jen-Chieh Lee, Taiwan, Republic of China
Natasha B. Leighl, Canada
Chiuan Herng Leow, Malaysia
Jianguo Li, China
Massimo Libra, Italy
Juntang Lin, China
Nadine Lübke, Germany
Sonja Ludwig, USA
Ian M. MacDonald, Canada
Anil K. Madugundu, USA
Radhashree Maitra, USA
Karl-Johan Malmberg, Sweden
Michelangelo Mancuso, Italy
Teri Manolio, USA
Edoardo Marrani, Italy
Erin McClelland, USA
Timothy J. Mead, USA
Estelle Menu, France
Steven W. Mes, the Netherlands
Sven Michel, Germany
Yuji Miura, Japan
Miriam Molina-Arcas, UK
Mark P. Molloy, Australia
Ana Morales, USA
Yoshitomo Morinaga, Japan
Jennifer J. D. Morrissette, USA
Florent Mouliere, the Netherlands
Cameron Mura, USA
Kei Murayama, Japan
Serge Muyldermans, Belgium
Shaik Mohammad Naushad, India
Jessica Nordlund, Sweden
Munier A. Nour, Canada
Raphael Nyaruaba, Kenya
Junna Oba, Japan
In‐Jae Oh, Republic of Korea
Stacey S. O'Neill, USA
Nobuaki Ozawa, Japan
Nicolas Pallet, France
Christos Papaneophytou, Cyprus
Girolamo Pelaia, Italy
Charles Pilette, Belgium
Aurel Popa-Wagner, Australia
Constanza Potilinski, Argentina
Priscilla R. Prestes, Australia
Shengying Qin, China
Luis Quiñones, Chile
Damian T. Rieke, Germany
Jürgen Rödel, Germany
Paul Roepman, The Netherlands
Sabrina M. Ronen, USA
Cintia Roodveldt, Spain
Maria Rossing, Denmark
Alessandro Russo, Italy
Pierre Saintigny, France
Pierachille Santus, Italy
Vincent Sapin, France
Fernando Scaglia, USA
Jonathon Schmitz, USA
Andreas Schmutzler, Germany
Nicola Scichilone, Italy
Gianluca Serafini, Italy
Didik Setyo Heriyanto, Indonesia
Grégory Seumois, USA
Ankush Sharma, Norway
Julia C. Stingl, Germany
Hiromichi Suzuki, Japan
Silvia Tabano, Italy
Natalie Tan, Australia
Dai-Shi Tian, China
Vincent Timmerman, Belgium
Mario D. Toro, Poland
Federica Torricelli, Italy
Anubhav Tripathi, USA
Jan Trøst Jørgensen, Denmark
Şevin Turcan, Germany
Ilona Uzielene, Lithuania
Lia van der Hoek, The Netherlands
Léon C. van Kempen, The Netherlands
Karl Vandepoele, Belgium
Yiannis Vasilopoulos, Greece
Cecilia Vecoli, Italy
Tijl Vermassen, Belgium
Paola Viganò, Italy
Stefania Volpe, Italy
Roddy Walsh, the Netherlands
Chih-Yang Wang, Taiwan, Republic of China
Helen Wang, Sweden
Jinke Wang, China
Yuling Wang, Australia
Andrew J. Weickhardt, Australia
Eric Wickstrom, USA
Jae Kyung Won, Republic of Korea
Laura J. Wood, UK
Florian Wünnemann, Canada
Zhaolin Xu, Canada
Akira Yamada, Japan
Hidetaka Yamamoto, Japan
Chunzhang Yang, USA
Runkuan Yang, Norway
Yung-Li Yang, Taiwan, Republic of China
Zuocheng Yang, China
Weidong Yu, China
Rui Zhang, China
I am also very grateful to the members of the journal’s Honorary Editorial Board, who have acted as peer reviewers and authors, and have provided guidance on journal content, policy and processes.
Springer Nature has continued to support the global response to COVID-19 by making all relevant content immediately and freely available. Indeed, Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy has published a number of papers relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic that are free to access and can be found together as a journal collection (https://link.springer.com/journal/40291/collections?filter=Open), including:
Analytical and Clinical Performance of Droplet Digital PCR in the Detection and Quantification of SARS-CoV-2. Kim, K.B., Choi, H., Lee, G.D. et al. Mol Diagn Ther 25, 617–628 (2021)
A Prospective Evaluation of the Analytical Performance of GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 and GENECUBE® FLU A/B. Kiyasu, Y., Akashi, Y., Sugiyama, A. et al. Mol Diagn Ther 25, 495–504 (2021).
The Path Forward for COVID-19 Diagnostics. Usherwood, T., Zhang, L. & Tripathi, A. Mol Diagn Ther 24, 637–639 (2020).
Preliminary Analysis of B- and T-Cell Responses to SARS-CoV-2. Zhang, LX., Miao, SY., Qin, ZH. et al. Mol Diagn Ther 24, 601–609 (2020).
Soluble Urokinase Plasminogen Activator Receptor: A Biomarker for Predicting Complications and Critical Care Admission of COVID-19 Patients. Chalkias, A., Mouzarou, A., Samara, E. et al. Mol Diagn Ther 24, 517–521 (2020).
The Potential Role of Smartphone-Based Microfluidic Systems for Rapid Detection of COVID-19 Using Saliva Specimen. Farshidfar, N., Hamedani, S. Mol Diagn Ther 24, 371–373 (2020).
In terms of other important company initiatives, the Springer Nature ‘Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Programme’ is aiming to connect researchers who are tackling the world’s toughest challenges with practitioners in policy and business, while the ‘Women in Science’ initiative aims to help empower more women scientists to achieve scientific excellence. Finally, I am delighted to inform you that Springer Nature is now carbon neutral for its direct operations (offices, fleet and flights) and earlier this year signed The Climate Pledge, making a commitment to be Net Zero carbon by 2040.
Returning to Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy, the editorial program for 2022 is well under way, and I am looking forward to bringing you many high-quality and authoritative articles over the coming year.
I thank you for your continued support.
With best wishes,
Alison Fitches