SUMMER 2012 ISSUE 21 encounters The camera instead THE of test tubes EMBO PAGE 5 JOURNAL PAGE 2 The EMBO Journal is 30 PAGE 7 A network of excellence EpiGeneSys: Epigenetics meets systems biology 4DCellFate A project funded by the European LECTURE Denis Noble, President of the Meeting of minds Are scientists and artists Commission Seventh Framework Programme International Union of Physiological driven by a similar kind of deeply rooted wants to investigate how protein complexes Sciences and Professor Emeritus of curiosity? Visual artists and researchers regulate differentiation in embryonic stem cells. Oxford University, was in Heidelberg on involved in the MitoSys project want to fi nd out. 28 February to give a lecture on systems biology at the Print Media Academy. PAGE 7 PAGE 9 PAGE 13 www.embo.org THE EMBO JOURNAL IS 30 The EMBO Journal is 30 A 30th anniversary invites refl ection on change and progress. Here senior editors past and present look back on the early days of THE EMBO JOURNAL.1 John Tooze. “The EMBO Council of the day felt for worry about that a journal would help cement the EMBO manuscript fl ow membership, and, if successful, it would market changed from too few the name of EMBO to a worldwide audience and to too many, while the possibly generate income. quality issue remained. But would we get enough high-quality manu- I remember during a John Tooze scripts to produce a journal that would add lustre family holiday standing to EMBO’s name or would we drift into medioc- in a telephone box in a Rockefeller University rity and fi nancial inconsequentiality? rain storm on the Isle of Founding Editor In the earliest years, I was often very anxious Skye suggesting referees based on titles and 1982 –2003 about manuscript numbers and quality. I would authors of new manuscripts. There was no edito- phone leading EMBO members to plead with rial back up in the early years until Iain agreed to them for the papers they were sending to Cell, share responsibility. Nature, Science, or at least to give us fi rst refusal And then there were the very many phone But enough of 30 years ago when everything on those that Cell and Nature had declined. A calls from rejected authors. After the preliminar- was paper, post and courier. Today, with instanta- common reply was “John, we’d happily send you ies I would say “Nothing you are going to tell me neous electronic communication I don’t envy my our best but our grad students and postdocs insist will change the rejection decision but I’ll listen if successors facing those daily myriads of e-mails.” on shooting for the stars.” I suspect that remains you want me to.” Twenty minutes or so later the the situation now. With time, however, the basis caller in Europe or the USA would wind down. Iain Mattaj reports and took decisions. This meant that when Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory authors phoned to complain about the decision we could have a science-based discussion on why Executive Editor the paper was rejected and that discussion satis- 1990 – 2004 fi ed all but the most obdurate of the callers. As the editorial offi ce got bigger over the next dozen them. The referee databases were in our heads. I years, and as other journals transformed their benefi tted enormously in that respect from being editorial offi ces more and more into postal relays a voracious journal reader and seminar attendee, between authors and referees, I tried to instill this and by being at The European Molecular Biology attitude to editorial work in the incoming editors. Laboratory, where seminars and meetings of all It is still a major principle of the current and laud- Iain Mattaj. “When I joined The EMBO Journal it sorts were frequent and generally excellent and I able EMBO Transparent Editorial Process intro- really was a different age. There were no targets, was very gratifi ed by the willingness of referees duced by Hermann Bujard and Pernille Rørth and although statistics on acceptance rates and to help both the authors and the journal. when they were Director of EMBO and Editor of impact factors were collected retrospectively there John Tooze and I were active editors, by The EMBO Journal, respectively. was minimal discussion of how we should act on which I mean we considered the papers and the The EMBO Journal editorial team δ David del Álamo (since 2011) ι Isabel Arnold (since 2005) σ Céline Carret (since 2011) κ Karin Dumstrei (since 2005) David received his PhD from the Auto- Isabel received her PhD from the University Céline completed her PhD at the University Karin received her PhD from the University nomous University of Madrid, studying of Munich for her work on mitochon- of Montpellier, France, on parasitic of California Los Angeles where she studied proximal-distal patterning in Drosophila drial protein sorting in the lab of Walter protozoa of the genus Babesia. After a DE-cadherin mediated cell adhesion in with Fernando Díaz-Benjumea. As a post- Neupert. As a postdoctoral researcher, she postdoc on lymphocyte signalling at the Drosophila in the lab of Volker Hartenstein. doc, he continued working with Drosophila worked in the lab of Fiona Watt at the Babraham Institute in the lab of Denis She then went to the Max Planck Institute in Marek Mlodzik’s lab (Mount Sinai School Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London Alexander (Cambridge), she worked on for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen of Medicine, New York) on the mechanisms on keratinocyte differentiation, and in the functional genomics and molecular para- where she worked on primordial germ cell of epithelial planar cell polarity generation, lab of Thomas Langer at the University of sitology of malaria at the Sanger Institute migration in zebrafi sh with Erez Raz. and with François Schweisguth (Institut Cologne on mitochondrial proteases and (Cambridge) and subsequently at the Focus areas Pasteur, Paris) on the modulation of Notch peptide transport. Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Gunnar signalling in lateral inhibition. Mair’s lab (Lisbon). Immunology Focus areas Neuroscience Focus areas Membranes and transport Focus areas Plant biology Developmental biology Cell death Genomic and computational biology ears Cell and tissue architecture Cellular metabolism Host – pathogen interactions 30yearsy Microbiology Protein synthesis and folding PUBLISHEDEDS SINCESINCE 1982 2 EMBOencounters | Summer 2012 | [email protected] ©2012 EMBO THE EMBO JOURNAL IS 30 Pernille Rørth. “Toward the end of 2004, it was there are other correlations best left Pernille Rørth getting clear that even Iain was perhaps a mere unspecifi ed. mortal – not fi nding the time to run The EMBO Research Director at the What was the most gratify- Journal along with everything else at EMBL. Institute of Molecular and ing aspect of the work? Clearly the EMBO Director Frank Gannon asked me if I Cell Biology, A*STAR, good science; also working with the Singapore would be willing to take over based on one neces- thoughtful and dedicated editors. As sary characteristic – a general and broad interest Executive Editor a publishing author and a reviewer, it in the areas of science touched by molecular biol- 2005 – 2009 was not hard to empathize with all the ogy. It was to be a steep learning curve and fi ve points of view – but resolving all this very, very interesting years. to a satisfactory decision – well, that The editorial offi ce had four full-time editors One role was to help editors was the job. Getting the 3rd perspec- to deal with about 3000 manuscripts every year. in confl icts with authors and tive – that of the editor – helps. The editorial board, populated with experts that reviewers. Growing up as a Although The EMBO Journal is really cared about the journal and its quality, and younger sister, I learned how ‘all grown up’ now at 30, it contin- a deep referee database were already in place. to manage bullies. I was once ues to have a leading role in the The role of the executive editor was “simply” to asked whether being a bully or world of science publishing. I wish step in when needed. I chose to be very involved not related to the number of X the next generation of authors, with the editors – working with them, the senior chromosomes. The evidence reviewers and editors of The EMBO advisors and the board on a daily basis. does not support this – but Journal a most impactful future.” Bernd Pulverer. “My research career started process. However, we aim to play a leading role We aim to do justice to EMBO’s vision for at a time when molecular biology was rapidly in embracing online technologies and publica- the journal to publish papers of exceptional expanding beyond the nucleus to encompass tion policies that will transform the paper from signifi cance that are based on rigorous data and fi elds such as signal transduction and the cell a static document of research achievement to a thoughtful analysis. I hope The EMBO Journal cycle. From the start, The EMBO Journal was very research tool containing data that can be read- continues to look as fresh and attractive as ever present in the life of a fl edging PhD student as a ily accessed, reproduced and reused. We will in its 30s.” beacon of quality – a must-read journal. As the continue to evolve an optimized editorial process journal matured through its teens, John Tooze by extending the EMBO Transparent Editorial Bernd Pulverer π and later Iain Mattaj presided over the selection Process principles launched by Pernille.