Focus on emerging investigators & ACS award

Welcome to this Emerging Investigators issue of Molecular BioSystems which once again seeks to feature and promote the work of young and new scientists in the field of chemical- and systems-biology.

Molecular BioSystems has now produced highly successful Emerging Investigator issues since 2008 (Mol. BioSyst., 2008, issue 6; 2009, issue 9; 2010, issue 9). This latest issue continues this theme with a small selection of younger scientists not so far highlighted in this way, along with ‘regular’ Molecular BioSystems contributions from a broader range of researchers across the full subject scope of the journal.

The publication of this issue is fortuitous as it pre-empts the first Molecular BioSystems Award which is to be presented at an Emerging Investigators symposium at the Spring American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting in Anaheim, California (27th–31st March, 2011), organized in collaboration with the ACS Division of Biological Chemistry.

M. Madan Babu

The first winner of this award is Dr M. Madan Babu from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, in recognition of his contributions to the understanding of regulatory networks in cells and the application of these fundamental ideas to systems biology. Dr Babu's accomplishments are widely recognized in the community even though he is still at an early stage in his independent research career. He was named an EMBO young investigator in 2009, thereby identified as one of Europe's most promising and creative young life scientists, and out of 17 winners was one of the youngest at 29 years of age. Molecular BioSystems truly believes in the promotion of new talent in this field. Thus to make the most of his expertise, we have just appointed Madan as the first Associate Editor for Molecular BioSystems, which means that by the time you read this, he will be processing papers for the journal.

We very much hope that you will enjoy this special celebratory issue of Molecular BioSystems as we continue in our aim to foster interdisciplinary research at the interface of chemical biology, systems biology and the –omics sciences.

Charles Boone, PhD

Chair, Molecular BioSystems Editorial Board

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