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For more than 23 years, BioTechniques has been a familiar fixture on lab benches everywhere—as fundamental and indispensable a tool as the pipettor and graduated cylinder. This month, the traditional BioTechniques pastels give way to a bold new look. Our vibrant color scheme and polished layout—the creation of our talented design team—is a deliberate choice to match our identity as a peer-reviewed international journal with 80,000 subscribers, a burgeoning online community, and a mandate for driving scientific innovation forward through broad dissemination of innovative methods for use across the spectrum of life science research.
In addition to the dramatic transformation in the journal's appearance with this issue, we have made other substantive changes. You will recognize new faces among the familiar ones on our distinguished Editorial Board. The BioTechniques Editorial Board comprises innovators who have made significant contributions to the advancement of life science technology. They are engaged, committed to the mission of the journal, and they contribute to that mission in diverse ways: by submitting manuscripts from their own groups, serving as peer-reviewers, contributing to the production of supplements in collaboration with the editors, and providing continual insight into new and emerging areas of techniques development in which the editors pursue content. We have also made additional changes that are more directly related to content. Going forward, Techniques Essay will be known as Tech Insight—a more fitting title for this series, which offers experts’ perspective on the principles and applications of new and emerging technologies. Technology News, timely reports on developing areas of technology, will be abbreviated to the livelier Tech News. In response to recent reader surveys, which revealed the enormous popularity of these two features, Tech Insight and Tech News will soon become monthly, rather than bimonthly, features.
Since its inception in 1983, the journal, the nature of the science it reports, and the BioTechniques community have evolved. To many of our subscribers who have been BioTechniques readers their entire professional careers, the changes may have happened so gradually as to almost escape notice. On the other hand, some of our newer subscribers in China and Japan may just be becoming acquainted with the journal's ethos. Perhaps, then, the time is right for us to (re)introduce ourselves.
BioTechniques, which got its start in a small office building in Natick, MA, is now a leading journal in Informa Healthcare, a division of the global specialist information provider Informa PLC. The greater BioTechniques family includes highly respected publishers of scientific books and journals. Within Informa Healthcare USA, each year sees the publication of some 200 journals, more than 250 clinical medicine books, and influential publications in the pharmaceutical and clinical sectors. With this array of sister publications and Informa Healthcare offices in over 40 countries, BioTechniques is now squarely placed as a world-class—and worldwide—operation.
As excited as we are about the opportunities our new corporate relationships provide, our primary community remains our readers, authors, reviewers, Editorial Board members, and sponsoring advertisers. BioTechniques was originally launched because its founders saw the promise of barrier-free dissemination of high quality methods information. Their hunch that scientists would share the nuts and bolts details of techniques innovation with their colleagues and that readers would value a place where they could find immediately implementable strategies and relevant products for accelerating their research was resoundingly validated. There are other methods sources now, of course, but none that provide the same unique blend of reach, practicality, perspective, and quality control. Naturally, all these characteristics are a direct consequence of our community. If BioTechniques weren't such a ubiquitous resource, our authors would not report being inundated with reagent requests and our advertisers would not see the benefit of supporting this unique publication. Without the willingness of our early authors to publish methods before methods became respectable, the journal could never have provided step-by-step, indispensable guidance to researchers. Equally important, our Editorial Board and thousands of reviewers over the years have suggested and questioned and educated with a passion and commitment that has driven the relevance and robustness of our content. More than any other journal, BioTechniques is of, for, and by the life science community.
It is within this context that we wear our new colors with pride, as we look ahead to BioTechniques’ 25th anniversary of serving the life science research community. For those who are newly joining us, welcome. For our friends who have been part of the BioTechniques community for years, we thank you for your feedback, service, and support. We hope you value and enjoy the changes you will see this month and in upcoming issues of your journal.
