Website Guides Readers On The Chemistry-biology Interface

The ACS Publications Division has introduced a new website, pubs.acs.org/bio, to highlight connections among research subdisciplines at the interface of chemistry and biology. The site aims to guide journal readers—who often deal in multiple subdisciplines—to the most appropriate publications to consult in their research work. The resource is part of an initiative designed to showcase the breadth and depth of content that ACS publishes in these areas.

More than one-third of the society’s 42 peer-reviewed journals contain research that is biological in nature. That group includes broad-topic journals, such as Biochemistry and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, as well as journals in fields such as chemical biology, molecular pharmaceutics, neuroscience, and synthetic biology.

To gather input to design the website, ACS drew upon market research and surveyed more than 4,000 scientists who work at the nexus of chemistry and ­biology.

Incorporating this input, the new website enables readers to select their primary area of interest from a graphical map, see connections to interrelated fields, and choose relevant ACS journals that publish research in these areas. To encourage readers to explore the website, ACS is allowing free access to a sample issue of each of the journals.

Researchers are less likely then they were in the past to reap benefits from a broad scientific search, given the precise filtering capabilities of today’s scientific databases and search tools, says Tara Pritchett, assistant director of marketing for ACS Publications.

“Readers of online journals tell us that they miss the serendipitous discovery that came from flipping through a printed journal, as it is not uncommon to find a method or technique from an unrelated study that can help advance one’s own work or spark innovations,” Pritchett adds. “This new resource is meant to highlight ways for scientists to engage their curiosity and expand their research horizons, not only by aiding discovery of relevant studies outside their immediate area of specialization but also by helping to identify the most appropriate ACS journal in which to publish their research.”