www.acs.org A Newsletter for Contributors to the ACS Cycle of Excellence Volume 2 / Issue 2 / Fall 2008 In This Issue: • Announcing ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces • Introducing JACS Beta & JACS Select • 2007 Journal Citation Reports® by Thomson Reuters • ACS Legacy Archives—A Perfect 80! • Organic Letters Celebrates 10 Years • Gordon G. Hammes Lectureship • ACS Introduces Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions • A New Delivery Platform for ACS Publications And more... A Supplement to ACS Publications EXCELLENCE VOL. 2 - ISSUE 2 - FALL 2008 b A Message from ACS Publications Our most sincere appreciation to you for your continued support in contributing to the journals of the American Chemical Society. We are reminded of your commitment to excellence with every manuscript we publish. That commitment is reinforced and reaffirmed every summer with the announcement of the annual Journal Citation Reports® by Thomson Reuters. Led by the Journal of the American Chemical Society with its 295, 465 total citations and its rise in ISI Impact Factor® to 7.885, ACS journals once again ranked at #1 in ISI Impact Factor and/or total citations in 15 separate subject categories (see pages 11 & 12). Further to these results, we extend our gratitude around the world as just like the global community of competitors on the world’s stage in this summer’s 2008 Beijing Olympics, so are you a global community of researchers contributing your very best in the publication of your research findings. In support of our global community we continue to grow our editorial presence and support worldwide with centralized support for international offices (see page 18) and recent delegations to China and Taiwan (see pages 6, 7, & 8). On the cover: Also in this issue and in support of the global community is an introduction to the Global Molecular Pharmaceutics Innovations Imperatives (see page 10). The Gii is a collaborative initiative between the From the Feature Topic Issue: ACS and the Society of Chemical Industry targeted to speed innovation, share chemical Natural Products and Production Systems technologies, and determine strategies for effective delivery on a global scale to address the (Volume 5, Issue 2, Guest Editor: Blaine Pfeifer) many significant issues facing our world. The cover illustration highlights the natural We are also very excited to introduce our newest entry to the ACS Cycle of Excellence, environments responsible for natural products, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, beginning publication online and in print in early the native or heterologous microbial organisms used to produce natural products, and the 2009 (see page 2 at right), as well as a new delivery platform for ACS Publications coming this final natural products isolated. Photos from fall (see pages 15 & 16). jupiterimages. Microbe images from CDC. Best regards, and as always thank you for your contributions to the ACS Cycle of Excellence. Molecular Pharmaceutics recorded its first We hope you find this newsletter to be useful and recommend that you visit the Excellence ISI Impact Factor® of 11.030 with the recently website for more information at http://pubs.acs.org/4authors/excellence/index.html. announced 2007 Journal Citation Reports® by Thomson Reuters. 11.030 ranks the journal as Best Regards, the highest impact primary research journal in Sean Abell, Editor, Excellence the category of Pharmacology and Pharmacy (205 total journals), and also ranks Molecular Pharmaceutics as the 3rd highest in impact factor among all ACS journals behind Chemical Reviews at 22.757, and Accounts of [email protected] Chemical Research at 16.214, the two highest impact factor journals in all of chemistry. 01 b Announcing ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces—Get to know ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces with Editor-in-Chief Kirk S. Schanze Dr. Schanze, Professor of Chemistry at Excellence: Who should read this new publication? the University of Florida, has recently been selected as the founding editor of The readership will consist of practicing scientists, engineers and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the students working in the area of applied materials science and newest journal from ACS Publications engineering who have an interest in applications of molecular- available in early 2009. Professor Schanze based materials and interfaces. We anticipate that the journal answered our questions about the new will be of interest to the community of materials scientists and journal and provided information about engineers in industrial, academic, and government lab settings, upcoming submission deadlines and where applications guide the development of advanced materials Editor-in-Chief: Kirk S. Schanze, publication dates. that are used in new products and technologies. University of Florida Excellence: Have you already appointed an Editorial Excellence: What are your scientific interests? Advisory Board? My scientific interests are in the area of optical properties of The full Editorial Advisory Board has not yet been appointed, organic and organic/inorganic hybrid materials. My group has but I plan that the EAB will feature a broad and diverse group of an active research program that is focused on the study of scientists from around the world who are working in academia, fluorescent conjugated polymers and luminescent organometallic government and industry labs. Their expertise will cover the conjugated materials. The group is also keenly interested in diverse areas of the journal including applications of organic, the applications of photoactive materials, and we have been inorganic and hybrid materials, biomaterials, polymers, and involved in the development of chemo- and biosensor technology, interfaces. luminescence imaging materials and methods, light emitting diodes and solar cells. Excellence: What types of content do you plan to feature and how soon will researchers be able to submit manuscripts for Excellence: Can you tell our readers about the scope of ACS consideration in the journal? When do you expect to publish Applied Materials & Interfaces? What topics do you plan to the first issue? cover and how does this journal fit into the existing suite of ACS journals? ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces will feature content in several different formats including letters, articles, comments, and invited Coverage will include applications of active and passive electronic/ forum articles and spotlights. Forums will be collections of 5 – 8 optical materials, coatings, colloids, biomaterials and biointerfaces, invited manuscripts published in a single issue that focus on topics polymer materials, hybrid and composite materials, and friction of keen current interest to the journal’s readership. Spotlights will and wear. While this is my initial vision for ACS Applied Materials be articles written by leading scientists and engineers in the field & Interfaces, I anticipate that in the long run the specific content of applied materials science. They will highlight a particular topic of the journal will be driven by the community of active scientists of interest to the readership of the journal, with an emphasis on and engineers who participate as readers, authors and reviewers. the author’s area of expertise. The journal will be the first among ACS materials chemistry Authors will be able to submit their works when online publications to focus primarily on applied science and submission goes live for the journal in mid-August via ACS engineering, as opposed to fundamental science. It will Paragon Plus. We plan to publish our first ASAP articles near the complement the coverage of the existing ACS materials journals end of this year. The first issue of the journal will be available in that are focused on fundamental science including Langmuir, early 2009. Chemistry of Materials, Biomacromolecules, Macromolecules and The Journal of Physical Chemistry B and C. You can find more information about ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces by visiting the website at http://pubs.acs.org/acsami. If you have questions about manuscript submission, you may contact the editorial office at [email protected]. 02 EXCELLENCE NEWSLETTER - VOL. 2 - ISSUE 2 b Introducing JACS Beta and JACS Select Synthesis of Biologically Active Natural independent feedback from the readership Products” with Guest Editor William R. – really a strong positive reception to this Roush, Associate Editor of JACS. The entry particular area of research. So we decided to below is a modified excerpt from a podcast move forward with it as the first thematic Earlier this year, ACS Publications interview with Dr. Roush that is currently issue. introduced JACS Beta, a new website posted on the JACS Beta website. that presents, encourages, and facilitates ACS: How were the articles and innovations and new approaches to the ACS: To begin with, why is JACS doing a communications selected to be featured in presentation of chemical and related virtual issue of the journal? the virtual issue? research to further communication and understanding as emerging fields and Well, as you know, JACS strives to publish With help provided by ACS Publications, the very best work in all fields of chemistry. we did a very detailed, if you will, statistical And there’s a sense among the readers, analysis of papers looking at the numbers of there’s a sense among the editors and the reads, downloads, etc., off of the Web. And editorial advisory board, that as the research we prioritized by this element of readership. is becoming more and more complex, even At least, that was one of the things we looked within the traditional sub-boundaries at. Obviously, given that we picked papers of the field – and especially given the that were published in ’07 and initially in amount of research ongoing, which is now 2008, it’s not possible for the papers in 2008 interdisciplinary, bordering on materials necessarily to have had the same number science, on the biological fields, and so on – of downloads as a paper that appeared, let’s that it’s just becoming a very, very hard task say, in January of ‘07.