In 2016, Laboratory Animals celebrates its 50th anniversary with some exciting news and perspectives. Over the past year, the executive committee, the editorial board, and the journal’s publisher SAGE, have worked hard on expanding the journal from four issues to six issues per year. The expansions include translation of abstracts into French, German and Spanish, and the addition of a News section with information from subscribing societies. Having six issues per year means extra work for the editor, the editorial board, and the publisher. As expected, the list of editorial board members has grown, and the addition of new expertise in several topics also means less work for individual editorial board members. This expansion also entails more work for the editor in the overseeing and processing of manuscripts and additional pages to fill with contributions, while still maintaining quality, the impact factor, and the turnaround time of the review process within acceptable limits. From 1 January 2016, two deputy editors have been appointed: Janet Rodgers and Arieh Bomzon. They will support the Editor-in-Chief, Beat Riederer in order to (i) rapidly communicate editorial decisions, (ii) hasten the turnaround time from initial submission to final decision, and (iii) make the journal more attractive to readers and potential authors. Another exciting addition is the News section, which will be supervised by Nathalie Baehler, our assistant editor. She will establish and maintain contact with subscribing societies by asking for contributions on events, meeting summaries, or information that may interest the wide readership of our journal.
Beat Michael Riederer completed his studies in the neurosciences at the University of Basel, Switzerland. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel and an assistant professorship at the Penn State Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Pennsylvania, USA, he produced several mono- and polyclonal antibodies that led to the discovery of novel proteins. In 1988, he established his own research group at the University of Lausanne (formerly known as the Institute of Anatomy) whose focus is the function of the neuronal cytoskeleton and its link to the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Since 1988, he has taught human anatomy at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a group leader at the Centre for Psychiatric Neurosciences, University Hospital Lausanne, where he directs the Proteomic Unit and investigates oxidative stress in neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s disease using a variety of protein labelling and proteomic techniques in human and animal tissues. He has authored more than 200 publications in many peer-reviewed journals. From 2001 to 2006, he was a member of the Ethics Commission for Animal Experimentation of the Canton Vaud, Lausanne, and the Ethics Committee for Animal Experimentation of the Swiss Academies of Natural and Medical Sciences. He is a member and Vice-President of the Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association, a subscribing society of Laboratory Animals, and is strongly committed to improving animal welfare in scientific research. He has been a member of the Council of Management of Laboratory Animals Ltd since 2001 and a member of the executive committee since 2013. In 2007, he became a member of the journal’s editorial board, was appointed as the Deputy Editor in 2011, and the Editor-in-Chief in 2013.
Janet Becker Rodgers has over 30 years of experience as an academic laboratory animal veterinarian, serving as Attending Veterinarian in the US and Named Veterinary Surgeon in the UK. After graduating from Colorado State University (USA) in 1980, she worked in small animal practice before returning to academia after three years to pursue a degree in microbiology and immunology. After conducting surgical research for eight years at the University of Kentucky (USA) medical school, she moved to the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources. In 2002, she passed the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM) board examinations and soon joined the ACLAM Examination Committee, which was in the process of modernising the examination. She worked with ACLAM for over 10 years, developing the examination database and analysing test results to ensure the high quality of the examination. In 2006, she moved to the UK to take up a post at the University of Oxford’s Veterinary Services department. She passed the European College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ECLAM) board examinations in 2010 and attained UK citizenship in 2012. In 2012, she took early retirement in order to pursue a longstanding interest in systematic reviews, earning an MSc in evidence-based healthcare from the University of Oxford. She has been on the editorial board of the American Association of Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS) journals since 2006, and a member of the European Council of the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International since 2011, conducting site visits in Europe and the USA. Janet is currently the ECLAM Secretariat, in which post she hopes to facilitate an increase in the number of diplomates and improve the quality of laboratory animal medicine in Europe.
Arieh Bomzon graduated from the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney in 1968 and then worked in small and mixed animal practices in Australia and England. In 1971, he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa where he obtained his PhD in physiology from the University of the Witwatersrand and became a fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), London, UK in 1975 for his research on renal blood flow in baboons. In 1981, Arieh moved to Israel to take up an appointment as a faculty member of the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. While at the Technion, he established the institutional review process for animal experimentation and was the course director of the Technion’s animal user training course. He was a member of Israel’s National Regulatory Authority for Animal Experimentation and the Chairman and a member of Technion’s Animal Ethics Committee. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters in the life, health, and veterinary sciences. He has also edited a book Cardiovascular Complications of Liver Disease, and reviewed an innumerable number of manuscripts and grant applications. In 2006, Arieh resigned his academic position to become a professional science editor and a consultant in laboratory animal science. To these ends, he obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Editing from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia in 2002 and a Diploma in Laboratory Animal Science from the RCVS in 2007. He was an ad hoc consultant for AAALAC International and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Hepatology and Israel Veterinary Medical Journal for several years. Currently, he edits and rescripts manuscripts and grant applications and provides editorial advice to authors of manuscripts in the life, health, veterinary, and agricultural sciences and is one of the associate editors of the Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods.
Nathalie Baehler studied biology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and is a graduate in biotechnology from the European cooperative programme of the University of Strasbourg, France, the University of Basel, Switzerland, and the Universities of Karlsruhe and Freiburg, Germany. She graduated with a degree in engineering biotechnology in 1998, and obtained her PhD in molecular biology from the University of Lausanne in 2003. She has worked on a number of research projects, which include infectious diseases using DNA chips at Hoffmann La-Roche Ltd, Basel, the myelination process in multiple sclerosis at Serono, Geneva, and signal transduction pathways in the brain at the University of Lausanne. She also teaches human anatomy and physiology at different schools, and consults in kinesiology. For several years, she worked for the Cantonal Veterinary Service on the protection of laboratory animals, and reviewed requests for using animals in research. She was also involved in the instruction of new scientists on the legal aspects of animal experimentation and conducted inspections of laboratory animal care and use programmes in public and private laboratories. In 2013, she was appointed Assistant Editor of Laboratory Animals and was responsible for the screening of incoming manuscripts. With the new format of the journal, she is now responsible for maintaining regular contact with subscribing societies and handling contributions for the News section.
Guidelines for the News section
News items of up to 1500 words, which will replace Notes and Comments and Book Reviews, are only accepted from subscribing societies.* These items may include up to two figures, which will reduce the word count to 1000. Articles can be in the language of the subscribing society and/or in English. Contributions to the News section are not subject to peer review and reflect the opinion of the subscribing society. If accepted for publication, authors will be required to sign an electronic copyright form. Questions and contributions should be sent to Nathalie Baehler via the Editorial Office: laeditorial@sagepub.co.uk.
*AFSTAL, ESLAV, FELASA, GV-SOLAS, ILAF, LASA, NVP, SECAL, SGV, SPCAL
