Welcome to the New Year and the start of the 5^th year of publication for Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry

Jay S. Siegel is Professor and Co-director of the Organic Chemistry Institute of the University of Zurich and Director of its laboratory for process chemistry research. He has been a member of the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Editorial Board since the journal began and is currently Chair of the Editorial Board. Born in California in 1959, Jay received his BSc degree from California State University, Northridge. He continued his studies in chemistry at Princeton with Professor Kurt Martin Mislow earning both MSc and PhD degrees in the area of Structural Chemistry and Stereochemistry before undertaking a NSF-CNRS postdoctoral fellowship with Jean-Marie Lehn at the University of Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg. He began his independent career as Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 1986 at UCSD, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1992 and Full Professor in 1996. He was named a US-NSF Presidential Young Investigator in 1988, an American Cancer Society Jr. Fellow in 1990, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in 1992, and an Arthur C. Cope Scholar by the ACS in 1998. His research interests focus on the synthesis and stereochemistry of designed molecular architectures.

2006 was a very successful year for Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry (OBC); a success that we intend to build on during this year. We would like to thank all of our authors, referees, Editorial and Advisory Board members for all their support and hard work in ensuring that OBC remains such a good quality journal. We look forward to your continued support in 2007.

Throughout 2007, we will be looking to publish even more of your best and most exciting research work in organic chemistry. Such timely research demands a responsive, rapid review and production service so that your latest results appear as soon as possible. OBC remains proud of its rapid times to publication, which continue to be very competitive. Typical times to publication average 43 days for communications and just 65 days for full papers.

ISI® impact factors provide an indication of a journal's prominence: revised annually, they take into account the number of citations in a given year for all the citeable documents published within a journal in the preceding two years. Impact factors released in June 2006 showed an impressive 16% rise for OBC (2.55), substantially more than the respectable average increase of over 10% for RSC Journals in general.

We strive to make OBC a great place to publish hot science of current and topical interest. The immediacy index reflects this as the ratio of the number of citations to the number of articles in a given year. The RSC immediacy index (0.79) in combination with OBC's ever increasing prominence supports our commitment to becoming organic chemistry’s best address for announcing new and exciting research.

Celebrating 5 years

2007 marks the start of the fifth year of publication for Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry. OBC has grown and developed considerably since publication began in January 2003, and this year OBC will continue to keep standards of publishing high.

We begin the New Year well with a great selection of articles. This issue contains an Emerging Area article by Karina Heredia and Heather Maynard (K. L. Heredia and H. D. Maynard, Org. Biomol. Chem., 2007, 5, 45) entitled ‘Synthesis of protein–polymer conjugates.’ There are also two Perspective articles; one by Jonathan Knowles and Andrew Whiting (J. P. Knowles and A. Whiting, Org. Biomol. Chem., 2007, 5, 31), which discusses the mechanistic aspects of the Heck–Mizoroki cross-coupling reaction; and one by Marc Greenberg (M. M. Greenberg, Org. Biomol. Chem., 2007, 5, 18) entitled ‘Elucidating DNA damage and repair processes by independently generating reactive and metastable intermediates.’

This year sees the retirement of Professor Ben Feringa, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, as chair of the OBC Editorial Board. Ben has been involved with the journal since its inception and his knowledge, enthusiasm and support have been greatly appreciated.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Ben for all his hard work; he will be missed by everyone involved with the journal.

This year also sees the retirement of Associate Editor, Professor Peter Wipf, University of Pittsburgh, US. Peter steps down after four years' service. Thank you Peter for all your efforts, advice and contributions.

We would also like to express our gratitude to Professors Chris Abell and Donna Blackmond who are also retiring from the OBC Editorial Board.

In 2007 we welcome to the Editorial Board Professor Margaret Brimble, University of Auckland, New Zealand, Professor David Leigh, University of Edinburgh, UK, and Professor Mohamed Marahiel, Philipps University of Marburg, Germany.

OBC Lecture Award

There will be a number of initiatives throughout the year to promote the journal, such as the 2007 OBC Lecture Award and sponsored events at conferences. Professor Jesper Wengel, University of Southern Denmark, received the inaugural OBC Lecture Award at the Chemical Biology: Directing Biosynthesis meeting last September in Cambridge, UK. This prize, created by OBC to promote up-and-coming researchers, is one of many awarded annually by RSC Publishing. In 2006, RSC sponsored international conference lectureships by more than 20 high-profile researchers to a sum of well over £15 000 (or $30 000 USD). The 2007 OBC Lecture Award winner will be announced early this year.

DNA makes it big on the nanoscale

At a time when nanoscience remains in the spotlight, we were pleased to present a themed issue in September on DNA-based nanoarchitectures and nanomachines. The issue was guest edited by OBC Editorial Board member, Itamar Willner, Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The issue showcased some of the most promising recent advances and gave insights for future directions. We would like to thank Itamar for all his hard work in compiling this excellent issue and highlighting this important area of science.

In addition to OBC's high-quality papers in the nano area, several RSC Journals and Books include related content and due to the interdisciplinary nature of the subject, the RSC has brought together this wealth of nano material in one convenient webpage, which is regularly updated. To see the latest content, visit: www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/nanoscience/.

Technological innovation

2006 has seen RSC Publishing invest significantly in technological developments across all of its products. Introduced last year, RSS feeds, or ‘really simple syndication’, have proved extremely popular with our readers. Subscribers receive alerts as soon as an Advance Article is published in their journal of choice, providing both the graphical abstract and text from a journal's contents page. You can subscribe via the OBC homepage.

Subscribers to OBC will now link from journals' contents lists straight through to the HTML view of selected articles, in just one quick step. Here you can download references to citation managers (such as EndNote, Ref Manager, ProCite and BibTex), sign up for RSS feeds, search for citing articles (otherwise known as ‘forward linking’), print the article with just one click and send the article to a friend or colleague.

From 2007, authors publishing in RSC journals will see their science ‘come alive’ thanks to an exciting new project pioneered by the RSC. Enhanced HTML in RSC articles will allow chemical and biological compounds mentioned in the text to be identified; by clicking on the compound, readers will be able to obtain further information about that compound, including a downloadable structure plus a list of relevant subject areas.

The RSC is the first publisher to utilise the International Chemical Identifier (InChI) for a project of this type and scope. The technology, a digital equivalent of the IUPAC name for any particular covalent compound, will be used to enhance RSS alerts so that future news feeds can include chemical structures and other enhanced information, like ontology terms. RSC Publishing intends to evolve this project to match author and reader needs, so tell us what you think: we welcome your feedback on this new functionality and will incorporate your ideas to develop the service further. Find out more at www.rsc.org/sciencecomealive.

Hot developments

Showcasing hot science from RSC Journals in Chemical Science, Chemical Technology and Chemical Biology has proved very popular with readers and authors alike. In fact, the free supplements have become so successful that from January 2007, all issues will be eight pages (in print), contain new article types and come complete with a fresh new look for the front page. Supplementary material will also be available online.

Online readers of Chemical Biology can also view a contents listing of all chemical biology articles published across RSC journals, making it the best place to find both news and research for those in the field.

Meanwhile Chemistry World, the RSC's award-winning magazine, launched two new web features at the end of 2006. The Chemistry World Blog is an interactive forum for news, discussion and opinion looking at the science hitting the headlines. The Chemistry World Podcast interviews high profile scientists about the latest hot topics in science and is free to download at www.rsc.org/chemistryworld.

Molecular BioSystems now in MEDLINE

Molecular BioSystems continues to strengthen its position and has had an excellent year. From bioanalytical and high-throughput techniques, microarrays and chip-based microfluidic technologies, to proteomics and biomarkers, the journal focuses on the interface between chemistry, the –omic sciences and systems biology. The journal is now indexed in MEDLINE, thus improving visibility in the community.

Subscribers to OBC in 2007 will continue to receive free online access to Molecular BioSystems at http://www.molecularbiosystems.org.

Soft Matter spin out

It's official: Soft Matter has separated from host journal, Journal of Materials Chemistry and is now a fully fledged solo publication. Its availability since launch to readers of Journal of Materials Chemistry and the online hosts, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry and Lab on a Chip, has ensured that Soft Matter received a large and interdisciplinary audience from the outset. OBC readers wishing to continue to read Soft Matter now need to recommend the journal to their librarian. Fill in the online recommendation form at www.rsc.org/libraryrecommendation.

RSC Open Science

Authors publishing in RSC Journals now have the option of paying a fee in exchange for making their accepted communication, research paper or review article openly available to all via the web with RSC Open Science. The scheme is only made available to authors once their papers have been accepted for publication following the normal rigorous peer-review procedures (RSC Open Science operates in parallel with the normal publication route, which remains free to authors). Authors who have published their work in RSC journals are also able to retrospectively apply for their work to be included in the scheme. Further information can be found at www.rsc.org/openscience.

Not just journals…

As well as an impressive portfolio of prestigious journals, the RSC has a wide selection of products for anyone with an interest in the chemical sciences. Visit the shop at www.rsc.org/shop to browse over 400 book titles, subscribe to or purchase an individual article from Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry or any other RSC journal, join or renew RSC membership, or register to attend a conference or training event.

In addition, RSC Publishing is pleased to announce the launch of the RSC eBook Collection. RSC books are now available online and can be easily downloaded as either chapters or books. The collection is fully searchable and also integrated with RSC Journal content. To search the collection or for further information, visit www.rsc.org/ebooks.

And finally

We hope that you agree with us that OBC is an essential read for all researchers across the breadth of organic chemistry, and that you enjoy the first issue for 2007. We are always happy to receive feedback from authors, especially if it helps us to further improve the publishing experience. We believe that RSC Publishing offers the best service of any scientific publisher: because of this, we have published a selection of the comments that we have received from authors from around the globe—take a look at www.rsc.org/authorquotes.

These developments demonstrate the investment in publishing products and services over the past year, and 2007 will see us enhancing our products further.

On behalf of the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Editorial Board and the Royal Society of Chemistry we wish all of you a very happy and successful 2007.

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