Abstract
This Special Issue marks the beginning of the Journal of Biomolecular Screening’s (JBS’s) 20th year of publication. As its current Editor-in-Chief, I’d like to extend my sincere thanks and congratulations to all the thousands of drug discovery scientists whose volunteer contributions as authors, reviewers, editors, and editorial board members have fueled this milestone. This journal truly is a product of our community’s innovation, cooperative spirit, hard work, and generous support.
By the end of this year, we will have published more than 15,600 pages of rigorously peer-reviewed original scientific research, reviews/perspectives, technical reports, and application notes—all dedicated to advancing the science of drug discovery. To illustrate our impact, as of summer 2014, the work published on these pages had been cited an estimated 12,462 times by other scientific journals and publications, and Society members consistently rank JBS as a top benefit of membership. In 2013, JBS was accessed online 1,215,048 times by viewers in 172 different countries around the world, and 285,136 full-text articles were downloaded. In the meantime, author feedback shows extremely high satisfaction—94% of JBS authors say JBS was their first choice for publication, and 98% say they would publish in JBS again, citing the reputation of our editors, editorial board, and publisher, as well as quality and speed of service. In 1996, we started with only 44 manuscripts submitted; by the end of 2013, there were 257 submitted, almost a 6-fold increase. This is truly a testament to the innovation and productivity of the SLAS community and hopefully a reflection of the journal’s popularity in publishing critical advancements in drug discovery.
When the Society for Biomolecular Sciences began publishing JBS in 1996, it focused almost entirely on high-throughput screening (HTS) and associated technologies. This was appropriate and timely as HTS technologies had advanced to the point where they were revolutionizing drug discovery. Within a relatively short time, drug discovery tools were developed to enable ultra-HTS and high-content screening (i.e., via miniaturization and imaging platforms). Many of these methods and technologies are now essential components of the drug discovery toolbox. The advent of higher throughput and higher content screening pushed the screening community to develop more sophisticated data handling and analysis, as we could now generate data faster than we could analyze them. In response, better statistical and computational tools were created to perform the analysis and ensure proper quality control of these enormous and sometimes complex data sets.
As a community, we have evolved a great deal since 1996, and this has been reflected in the JBS publication strategy. The knowledge gained from HTS is now being applied to other areas of the drug discovery pipeline: ADME/pharmacokinetics, toxicology, diagnostics, biomarker assays, and genomics. Our screening approaches have changed, incorporating more focused, virtual, and fragment libraries (vs. the old brute-force methods) and exploring new modalities of target modulation, such as protein-protein interactions, covalent inhibitors/activators, therapeutic antibodies, large molecules, RNA silencing, and more. We have learned that more time needs to be devoted to target identification/validation and then developing the most relevant assays to reflect the biology we wish to modulate. A more thorough understanding of kinetics, binding mode(s), target context, predictive toxicology, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics modeling, and patient stratification is clearly required to improve the success of drug discovery. JBS has tried to reflect these trends by broadening its scope to accommodate these new areas of focus. In particular, Special Issues led by uniquely qualified Guest Editors have become important ways to bring attention to exciting scientific areas of research and compile current knowledge via contemporary reviews.
The current Special Issue is an excellent example of how JBS explores new scientific initiatives. Thanks to the insight and leadership of Julio Martin-Plaza of GlaxoSmithKline in Tres Cantos, Spain, and Eric Chatelain of the Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative (DNDi) in Geneva, Switzerland, this issue presents an intriguing collection of thoughtfully assembled reports addressing Novel Therapeutic Approaches for Neglected Infectious Diseases. As a bonus, the generous sponsorship of DNDi is allowing JBS to make this issue freely available online immediately upon publication. For this, we are grateful and excited about the valuable impact this open-source issue will have on important research initiatives everywhere around the globe.
Going forward into the next 20 years, JBS will continue to build on its foundation of biomolecular screening, continue to teach and share best practices, and contribute to a better understanding of the targets we screen, the data we acquire, and the patients we wish to benefit. I look forward to your continued readership, authorship, critical peer review, and support. As always, I welcome any comments or suggestions for improvement.
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