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EMBO reports 6, 4, 291 (2005)
doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400388
Welcome to Molecular Systems Biology
Frank Gannon
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Last month, EMBO and Nature Publishing Group (NPG) proudly announced the birth of a new journal: Molecular Systems Biology, an online-only open-access journal you can find at http://www.molecularsystemsbiology.com. Those among you who have waited expectantly for the arrival of a new child will recognize the cauldron of emotions that surrounds the moment of reality when the waiting is over. The excitement will soon settle, but inevitably there are some questions at the back of your mind: will it succeed (scientifically), will it be healthy (financially) and will it be appreciated (by researchers)? Time will tell whether Molecular Systems Biology fulfils our expectations. But there is an extra question that I would like to answer: Why start up a new journal when such a wealth of publications already exists?
The decision to launch Molecular Systems Biology came after intense debate and reflection. Rather than launching a series of satellite journals on subtopics of biology, as various research communities suggested, we decided to focus our efforts on complementing our high-quality broad-based flagship publication, The EMBO Journal. EMBO reports has already demonstrated the success of this approach through its science and society section, reviews, meeting reports and shorter, highly focused research papers. We could have remained satisfied with the status quo, but new developments led us to reconsider our position.
One relevant argument was the ongoing discussion on open access to scientific publications. As I have written before (Gannon F (2004) Ethical profits from publishing. EMBO Rep 5: 1), I take a middle stance on the 'author pays' model that forms the economic basis of existing open-access journals. I, like all scientists, want my work to reach the maximum audience, but the current subscription-based system works well for both The EMBO Journal and EMBO reports. Their content is widely accessed on the web and is freely available after 12 months or immediately after publication for less-developed countries. We also grant our authors the right to self-archive, which should further increase the readership of their publications. In addition, we use the income generated from both journals to initiate and support a number of grant schemes that are well received by the scientific community. A switch to an 'author pays' model for The EMBO Journal and EMBO reports could harm these initiatives and dissuade scientists from submitting their work.
However, we continued to discuss the topic of open access, most recently at The EMBO Journal's 21st birthday celebrations. During lively debates, the idea arose to focus a new journal on a topic that demands open access rather than implementing it simply for the sake of it. That is where the second stimulus to establish Molecular Systems Biology originated. Most biologists should now be aware of the paradigm change that is being driven by the use of high-throughput technologies to generate large-scale data sets. The conversion of these data into knowledge inevitably requires approaches that allow integration of the information into models of how the cell or cellular components work. Systems biology is the shorthand for this new approach. As raw data are crucial for testing any proposed model, it is essential that those data are widely available to the research community. This is a perfect example of the direct advantage of open access, irrespective of any philosophical or economic discourse on the topic. NPG, who publishes The EMBO Journal and EMBO reports, has come to a similar conclusion. We believe that its decision to join in this endeavour strengthens Molecular Systems Biology.
We selected the name Molecular Systems Biology as the word 'molecular' provides some limits to the scope of the journal such that it matches our expertise. An editorial team along with the Senior Editors—a group of worldwide leaders in this emerging field—are responsible for the selection of papers, which is followed by fast, yet rigorous and constructive, peer review. An advisory editorial panel also assists throughout the review process. NPG complements the primary research papers by adding news & views content and related commentary. This combination of scientific quality, publishing professionalism and experience should soon establish Molecular Systems Biology as a leader in this new and exciting research area.
We also want to use the establishment of this journal as an opportunity to test new possibilities. Molecular Systems Biology is an electronic-only journal, and although traditionalists may raise an eyebrow at the lack of a print version, we feel that the content of the journal is best suited to this medium. It also allows us to provide a forum for discussion—readers who wish to add relevant data to a paper, comment on its content or conclusions, or point to related studies can do so on the website. In the modern scientific world, such an option seems a logical step, and it will be interesting to see to what extent the systems biology community will use this resource. We are aware that some papers may be too computational or too mathematics-based for some readers. For this reason, every paper has a synopsis that presents its message in scientifically satisfying but simple language. On the technical side, Molecular Systems Biology allows for submission of data and models in Systems Biology Mark-up Language (SBML), a format that facilitates further analysis by other researchers and helps to integrate the published research with databases and other resources. In this and other ways, we hope that Molecular Systems Biology will help to define and establish useful and widely accepted standards for the normalization, integration and presentation of data in this exciting and growing area of biological research. And that alone is a great reason to start a new journal.
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