Letter to the Editorial Board

Abstract

Dear Editorial Board members:

Happy new year. Cancer Biology and Therapy is now in its second year of publication and is looking great. The first year went by very fast but we have been very pleased with the outstanding progress and development of the journal thanks to all of you and the efforts of Landes Bioscience.

Please take a look at the new web site of CBT: http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cbt/

We have continued to modify the site since it was first announced at the end of last year and would love to get your suggestions to make it even better. Bookmark it and check it frequently for new postings and use it to access information for manuscript submissions.

Check the useful links page: http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cbt/links.php

We invite you to send us your original manuscripts. We are interested in original basic research on cancer, as well as translational research on cancer. This is the single most important category that will distinguish our journal and progressively improve its standing among biomedical journals. Our turn-around time remains rapid and now the PDF files (proofs) in the print format of the journal get generated shortly after acceptance and can be accessed at the web site as soon as they are approved by authors and posted. A number of authors have taken advantage of Pathway 2 for manuscript submission (see author guidelines at the CBT web site: http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cbt/) and this has been working efficiently.

We have made significant progress in cutting down the amount of time between acceptance and when abstracts actually appear in Medline.

Please help us by suggesting topics and/or names of colleagues (including yourself) who might write reviews in the broad areas of interest of the journal. We have been publishing 4-5 reviews in each issue in addition to the Commentaries that have been popular. Please let me know if you are interested in writing a review along with when you can submit it so we can plan ahead. Look through the reviews we have published as I am certain you'll find some real gems.

We invite those of you who see patients or interact with clinicians to think about appropriate Bedside-to-Bench reports. These are very useful for the readership because they remind us of what we see on the wards, and that our patients await new and better therapies. Importantly, they put in context what is known or not known about molecular features and could stimulate certain translational directions of research. It takes a special effort, and sometimes an extra ordinary effort to get this done, but that's the challenge. CBT provides an excellent forum for these reports so please take full advantage of them.

We are interested in your philosophical views about any and all aspects of the research enterprise (see manuscript by Vivek Rangnekar in Volume 1 Issue 1, 2002). In addition we have also started to publish "Profiles and Legacies" as a subsection of Research Philosophy. I know that you will enjoy reading the interesting pieces by Don Coffey (vol 1 issue 5), Mary Hendrix (vol 1 issue 5), Peter Nowell (vol 1 issue 6), Dan Von Hoff (vol 1 issue 6), E. Prem Reddy (vol 2 issue 1) and Bob Kerbel (vol 2 issue 1).

Our first special issue on Cancer Therapy is coming together nicely and manuscripts will begin being posted in the near future. The Introductory piece has been written by Dr. Andrew Von Eschenbach. This is likely to be a very useful collection of cutting-edge reviews that will leave their mark in time as to the most attractive or promising therapeutic targets.

Tell your colleagues about Cancer Biology and Therapy. Excerpts from the review in the Nov 7, 2002 issue of Nature can now be read through a link at the main web site of CBT (http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cbt/).

Please send us your manuscripts and let me know if I can answer any questions.

Sincerely,

W. El-Deiry

Editor-in-Chief, Cancer Biology and Therapy