Fostering interdisciplinary biology

Research projects at the interface between chemistry, omic-level sciences, and systems biology offer a unique opportunity for Molecular BioSystems to publish manuscripts that fall outside the mandate of most other journals. We are targeting this interdisciplinary research area since we anticipate that the most innovative science in model systems biology and more applied molecular genetics in the next decade will involve researchers interested in solving problems in interdisciplinary areas of biology.

In particular, we envision several aspects as key to successful research projects in integrated areas of biology:

• First, omics methodologies and their corresponding data sets can be mined broadly to define the components of a system.

• Second, detailed quantitative analysis and modeling of the pathways within the defined system will enable the development of a predictive understanding of biological processes.

• Third, chemistry will enable new functional genomics technologies such as the development of precise system-specific chemical probes, which will be critical for testing derived models and ultimately developing new therapeutics.

Molecular BioSystems is interested in publishing manuscripts exploring all aspects of cross-disciplinary studies in systems biology, the omics sciences and chemical biology and we hope that our journal will help enable the emergence of a new scientific synthesis.

Recent increases in submissions reflect how much more successful and popular the journal is becoming with authors and readers alike. As the journal continues to grow and develop, we continue to endeavour to improve quality and consistency and this was why we appointed Dr Madan Babu (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge) as our first ever Associate Editor who, for over a year now, has been managing the peer review of a significant proportion of manuscripts submitted to the journal. More associate editors will be appointed in the future to further the goal of quality and consistency in the peer review process.

Themed issues

The journal continues to publish topical themed issues on cutting edge developments in the chemical and systems biology areas – the most recent of which has been the first ever issue on Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (Mol. BioSyst., 2012, 7(1)).

Electronic developments

The Molecular BioSystems blog (http://blogs.rsc.org/mb/) and twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/molbiosyst) pages help to keep readers up to speed with the latest hot papers and other news related to the journal and authors can now sign up to our just accepted service, whereby accepted papers are published (unedited) online within two days of acceptance – just tick the appropriate box on submission!

Molecular BioSystems welcomes other e-innovations and will try to work with you to provide the best service possible thus we welcome: videos, animated gifs for content entries, animated images/graphics, digital/animated comic strips and other e-innovations.

Conferences

Molecular BioSystems continues to work with conference organizers to reward scientific excellence, especially with younger up-and-coming researchers who will be the leaders of the chemical- and systems biology fields of the future. In 2011, the first Molecular BioSystems Award lecture took place during the Spring ACS meeting in Anaheim. The 2011 Awardee, Madan Babu, delivered a superb lecture on ‘Structure, evolution and dynamics of gene regulatory networks’ as the finale in a Division of Biological Chemistry symposium dedicated to Emerging Investigators.
2011 Molecular BioSystems Awardee, Dr M Madan Babu

Look out for Molecular BioSystems Editorial Board members and RSC staff at a range of conferences over the coming year, not least of which will be the ICSB2012 meeting in Toronto (August 19–23, (http://icsb2012toronto.com/)). In addition, the RSC organizes a broad range of conferences and events. Please visit the website for the most up to date listing: www.rsc.org/events.

Many thanks

Finally we would like to thank all our reviewers, authors and readers for their continued loyalty and support. We hope to meet many of you during the coming year!

Charles Boone

Editorial Board Chair, Molecular BioSystems.

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