ACS to Launch New Journal

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING

The American Chemical Society's stable of journals is again expanding. The society's newest journal--known by the working title of ACS Chemical Biology--will cover research at the interface between chemistry and biology. The monthly's first print issue is planned for January 2006.

"Chemical biology may be broadly defined as the use of rigorous chemical and biological approaches to solve problems in living systems," notes Robert D. Bovenschulte, president of ACS's Publications Division. "Here, chemists' ability to investigate the structure and behavior of existing molecules, as well as create new ones, is proving to be a powerful enabling tool in unlocking the complex mechanisms of life."

The journal "is a new type of publication for ACS that reflects a major effort to reach out to this multidisciplinary life sciences community," according to John P. Ochs, vice president of new product development for ACS's Publications Division.

In addition to communications and full papers, the journal will contain commentaries, opinion pieces, reviews, and minireviews. It will also contain short articles describing the general concepts that have guided important developments and the implications of those concepts for future research.

In addition, Ochs notes that "because research in the field of chemical biology has natural applications to high-public-interest areas like human health, articles will be accompanied by brief summaries of the significance and key findings for a nonspecialist audience." The summaries will appear in both the print and online editions of the journal and "will be sent to the popular press in order to generate awareness and visibility for both author and journal."

Bovenschulte adds that these outreach efforts "give us a tremendous opportunity to highlight the value of chemically related sciences to the general public and to help shape public opinion regarding the contributions of the chemical sciences to their well-being." The new journal complements ACS's Journal of Proteome Research and Molecular Pharmaceutics.