“The microbe is so very small, you cannot make him out at all …” Hilaire Belloc 1912.
Microbes are miniscule but magnificent. They can be malevolent. They pervade and dominate our lives. The sudden emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in 2019 has crippled our planet and health care systems and utterly changed the world we live in. The march of the microbes is an unending movement that defines our lives. With great enthusiasm, I am taking on the Editor-in-Chief position at New Microbes and New Infections and aim to lead the journal in new directions and to broaden the scope of interest and to widen and diversify the editorial board. To start, the journal will have four new Associate Editors, Jaffar Al-Tawfiq (Saudi Arabia), Philip Fischer (USA), Esther Künzli (Switzerland), Dipti Patel (UK) and a large and global Editorial Board with scientists and clinicians who are all passionate about their work and areas of expertise. New Microbes and New Infections (NMNI) is an established journal that has served the field for some years now and I would like to build on the impressive and solid foundation build by the former team under the lead of Prof. Michel Drancourt. To date, NMNI receives between 200 and 300 paper per year, has a rejection rate of about 40%, a climbing Cite Score (currently 5.2) and over 1 million full text downloads in 2021. What's new? NMNI will continue to be a rigorously, peer-reviewed, fully open-access journal but only English language papers will be considered. Furthermore, the concept of a “new microbe” will be much wider and I hope the journal will attract and publish cutting-edge papers on all aspects of emerging microbes and infections. It will encompass new microbes that are evolving from existing organisms and microbes causing infection in new populations or moving to a new geographic area via travel and migration. The journal will also consider papers that predict or document the expansion of a microbe to a new ecological niche or an expanded geographic area due to climate change and other environmental factors and the societal impact of such change. Another aim of the journal is to publish papers on “old microbes” with a new presentation such as drug resistant malaria, antimicrobial resistant bacteria or re-emerging infections or organisms in new hosts or vectors. Another strong focus of the journal will be migration and travel-acquired microbes showing that travellers can be sentinels for new infections and outbreaks. Microbes travel as “baggage” within humans but also on travel conveyances such as aircraft, ships and trains and can become “new microbes” in new terrain.
Recent emerging infections have strong links or origins to the animal world. NMNI aims to have a strong “one health” focus. The new scope of the journal will also cover the manipulation of microbes in the lab and will consider organisms of bioterror. Microbes in the context of military medicine will also be considered.
New microbes and infections will of course require new vaccines, new therapies or repurposed therapies. The remit of the journal covers antimicrobials, preventive approaches and therapies to combat novel microbes and the journal will be open to controversial commentaries on these themes.
New microbes frequently have pandemic potential and this journal will welcome articles that are public health oriented. Such papers would consider or model the preparedness of healthcare infrastructures or international organisations to detect, survey and mitigate emerging microbial threats.
NMNI will publish high quality systematic reviews, according to PRISMA guidelines, narrative reviews, cutting-edge, original research and rapid analyses of emerging infections as well as editorials, short correspondence pieces and special issues that can be rapidly reviewed and published. The journal also has a “first sighting” section. In addition to all of this, I am delighted to introduce original artwork to the journal, contributed by our Artist-in-Residence, Raffaela Pitzurra. She is a scientist, artist and illustrator and will interpret microbial topics of interest with her signature sketches. In this first issue of 2022, the sketch is entitled “all eyes and ears on variants and mutations” reflecting the intense interest in Omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. In the “editorial notes” section, each NMNI issue will present an interview with a famous player in infectious disease or microbe scientist in the column “NMNI Profile”. The “NMNI Profile” will combine frivolous, cheeky and serious questions. Watch that page! The first interview is with Mary E. Wilson.
And so a new era starts for New Microbes New Infections – it promises to be an exciting journey and full of surprises and I hope you will contribute to the journal, read the papers and be part of this microbial adventure.
“It is the microbes who will have the last word ....” Louis Pasteur.
Transparency declaration
The author declare that they have no conflict of interest.