TheScientificWorld is delighted to inform you that Antonello Bonci, MD, Associate editor of TSW Drug Dependence domain, has been appointed as Scientific Director of National Institute on Drug Abuse's (NIDA’s) to lead the Intramural Research Program in tackling the challenging problems of drug abuse and addiction.

Dr. Bonci was previously professor in residence in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he held the Howard J. Weinberg Endowed Chair in Addiction Research. (see: http://irp.drugabuse.gov/index.html).

Dr. Bonci will replace Dr. Barry Hoffer, who has served as the NIDA scientific director since 1996. Dr. Hoffer is stepping down from his role as scientific director to be a tenured principal investigator and chief of the Cellular Neurophysiology Section of the Cellular Neurobiology Branch of the IRP.

Dr. Bonci began his new position at the NIDA IRP in Baltimore on August 29, 2010.

Modern economies require increasing levels of mobility and entrepreneurship which is translated in a strong demand for a robust and secure social environment. Biometrics are considered as a key to tackling this problem and they are now found on every political agenda. Since in our strongly networked society physical identity is increasingly being replaced or supplemented by its digital equivalent, the need for more and better means of identification is constantly increasing. Biometric technologies seem to offer a solution for stronger identification. TheScientificWorldJOURNAL is pleased to announce a forthcoming special issue on this topic, for which authors are invited to submit their work on a range of related topics.

We, at TheScientificWorld, were really saddened to learn of Leena Peltonen’s passing. Leena, extremely international in her outlook with major positions in the US and UK, had always generated news of the highest order in Finland, her home country being scientifically savvy with a deep medical conscience. She remains, probably, the most internationally celebrated Finn after the Nobel Peace Laureate Martti Ahtisaari. Her reach was much broader than genetics. She was always helpful and free with her advice and counsel. Of course, she leaves a wonderful legacy of the next generation of geneticists she has wisely mentored and they will continue her work. But, her smile and style will be sorely missed.

More eloquent and important notices can be found at the Sanger Institute and at the Academy of Finland

Footnote: while TSW is international in its operation, it has also travelled – almost in Leena’s footsteps - from the US via the UK and is now headquartered for personal reasons in Finland.

We are delighted to have published a Directions in Science paper by Professor Robert Linhardt’s team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies in New York.

Professor Linhardt is internationally known for his research on the study of bioactive carbohydrates, particularly the complex polysaccharide heparin.

The extent of the additional research currently being carried out by the team in his laboratory is far-reaching. Linhardt’s synthetic chemistry group relies on chemical and enzymatic synthesis to prepare target carbohydrates for biological evaluation. An artificial Golgi is also being used to study the parameters affecting glycan biosynthesis in the cell and is the focus of this new publication by the team.

In their paper Artificial organelles: Digital microfluidic platform for proteoglycan and glycoprotein biosynthesis, Martin et al. describe the background and the processes behind the creation of the artificial Golgi, and the future prospects of this fascinating research.

This paper has been published in conjunction with TSW’s Cell Biology domain. To view other papers recently published in this and other areas of the journal click here .

TSW Announces New Principal Editor for Terrestrial Environmental Toxicology Domain.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Raphael J. Witorsch, Ph.D., as Principal Editor for TheScientificWorldJOURNAL’s Terrestrial Environmental Toxicology domain. Dr. Witorsch is an experienced expert on the health effects of a variety of chemical exposures, among these endocrine disruptors, trichloroethylene, polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde, environmental tobacco smoke, alcohol, Red Dye No. 3, silicones, oral contraceptives, arsenic-based wood preservatives, statins, anabolic steroids, and steroids in utero. Dr. Witorsch has had considerable experience in determining whether associations between xenobiotic exposures and adverse health effects are causally related. Much of his current interest in endocrine disruption focuses on environmental chemicals interacting with the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Glucocorticoids (such as hydrocortisone) are critical for survival during stress and many other physiological functions including reproduction.

TSWJ’s business model comprises revenues from authors that choose to publish with Open Access and subscriptions or licences, which allow readers access to all other articles. By controlling our costs and balancing these revenues we are able to offer both cheaper Open Access fees than most (if not all) publishers and reduce our subscription prices (compared to commercial publishers). TSWJ is “librarian friendly” in that in our publishing model, unlike exclusively Open Access journals, still relies on librarians to subscribe and give their members full access. If libraries do not subscribe, authors – often from the developing world - who cannot afford Open Access fees will not be able to publish freely in this peer-reviewed publication.

TheScientificWorld is an Open Access compliant publisher, and indeed TSWJ was the first Open Choice journal. TSWJ offers authors Open Access at extremely competitive rates. Authors retain copyright.

TSWJ: a new way of thinking, a better place to publish

TSWJ is foremost an online scientific forum for the research community publishing original research and reviews including TSW’s very own “Directions in Science”. TSWJ publishes ‘dynamicREVIEWS’ and ‘datasets’ as well as conventional articles. - broad-based journal - wide international reach - no processing fees or hidden page charges - best value optional Open Access around - rapid expert review - specialist editorial boards - articles are published in high quality PDF - authors retain copyright - limitless free colour - all articles indexed in PubMed (LinkOut)

TSW: NNP boasts one of the most auspicious group of brain researchers in publishing. The prestigious Editorial Board look forward to welcoming your article submissions.

Recent articles include:
Presynaptic CRF1 Receptors Mediate the Ethanol Enhancement of GABAergic Transmission in the Mouse Central Amygdala (Open Access) by Zhiguo Nie, Eric P Zorrilla, Samuel G Madamba, Kenner C Rice, Marissa Roberto & George Robert Siggins

Electric Fields and Inflammation: May the Force be with You (Open Access) by Simon B Brown & Ian Dransfield

Cytokines and Myelination in the Central Nervous System (Open Access) by Thomas Schmitz & Li-Jin Chew

Detection of Heteromers Formed by Cannabinoid CB1, Dopamine D2, and Adenosine A2A G-Protein-Coupled Receptors by Combining Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation and Bioluminescence Energy Transfer (Open Access) by Gemma Navarro, Paulina Carriba, Jorge Gandía, Francisco Ciruela, Vicent Casadó, Antoni Cortés, Josefa Mallol, Enric I Canela, Carmen Lluis & Rafael Franco

Septins: New Microtubule Interacting Partners (Open Access) by Rosalind V Silverman-Gavrila & Lorelei B Silverman-Gavrila

Conditioned Place Preference Induced by Licit Drugs: Establishment, Extinction, and Reinstatement by Yu Liu, Bernard Le Foll, Yanli Liu, Xi Wang & Lin Lu

The Special Issue on Cardiac Development is completed with an insightful editorial and introduction by Robert E. Poelmann and Adriana C. Gittenberger-de Groot of the Department of Anatomy and Embryology at Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands.

The outstanding reviews examine development of the cardiovascular system in depth and are freely available on Open Access. For the full table of contents please click here

Links are embedded in the PDF of ‘Cardiac Development’.

We are delighted that Dr. Richard J.C. Brown of the UK’s National Physical Laboratory has been appointed as Principal Editor for both the Analytical Chemistry and the Environmental Chemistry domains. Dr. Brown has just authored an article on The use and abuse of limits of detection in environmental analytical chemistry which is available on Open Access together with an earlier germane article on Double Anonymity and the Peer Review Process. He is also the author with Dr. Dan J.L. Brett of a research article Electrochemical Study of Biotin-Modified Self-Assembled Monolayers: Recommendations for Robust Preparation. TSWJ and Dr. Brown would welcome new submissions in this area.

We have just received from Thomson Scientific the raw data of citations to articles published in TSWJ. As recent editorials and papers have argued, the data are often seriously flawed but initial analysis shows that the average number of times cited articles were cited in the next 2 calendar years are:

2006: 2.59 (range 1-12)
2007: 2.52 (range 1-15)

It is never too late to browse the seminal papers published from Frontiers in Addiction Research