Abstract
This issue represents the 10th Anniversary of the Journal of Huntington’s Disease (JHD) and to mark the occasion, we wanted to share our thoughts on what makes JHD so special. In this editorial we reflect on some of the lessons we have learned on this journey, insights we have gained, and acknowledge our shared successes. The journal has significantly matured over the last decade. Each year the number of citations has grown with major increases observed during 2018-2021. We have published 362 papers, representing a diverse array of article types and topics including 70 highly cited and informative reviews, basic science and mechanistic papers, clinical studies, caregiver focused reports, population studies, and our highly successful Clinical Trials corner. We were incredibly fortunate to publish an exciting and timely Open Source Special Issue entitled DNA repair and somatic repeat expansion in Huntington’s disease, made possible by the efforts of our guest editors Lesley Jones, Christopher E. Pearson and VanessaWheeler.
We have come to appreciate that we are all important elements of a wonderfully multidisciplinary, collaborative, and diverse scientific and clinical community. We are proud of how HD researchers have worked towards our common goals of increasing our understanding of HD, advancing HD care, and improving treatments for HD. For the first ten years of our existence, JHD has fostered an inclusive and comprehensive publication policy aimed at distributing a diverse range of manuscripts on a wide variety of topics related to HD. We are committed to maintaining rigorous peer review and ensuring that JHD exclusively publishes technically sound and scientifically valid papers. We encourage HD researchers to publish negative results and to share any findings which will make significant contributions to scientific knowledge in this field. We do our best to serve the HD community by ensuring that papers submitted to JHD are reviewed as rapidly as possible and published in a timely fashion. A key goal for the future is to provide authors with an even more efficient review process and to continue to reduce the length of time required to reach decisions for submissions.
We applaud our many dedicated associate editors and reviewers, manuscript handling can sometimes be quite challenging, particularly during a pandemic. Finding appropriate reviewers takes valuable time. Evaluating scientific papers and delivering constructive and objective peer-reviews also takes valuable time. The dedication and amazing efforts that our various contributors to JHD have made over the years are the reason our Journal has been able to grow, thrive, and succeed in difficult times. The staff at IOS Press have been a joy to work with and have been unflinchingly supportive of JHD’s mission. Marian Difiglia has done a masterful job as Reviews Editor and continues to push our Journal to greater heights.
Lastly, we would like to thank all our amazing authors and readers for their support and contributions over the years.
We are proud of the success that the Journal of Huntington’s disease has achieved in our first decade, which would not have been possible without the support and dedication of the HD research community. We look forward to another decade of providing a diverse and inclusive platform for sharing the exciting advances and incredible research generated by this community.
This work will ultimately lead to effective cures and to an improved quality of life for all individuals and families affected by Huntington’s disease.
Cheers,
Leslie and Blair