The first editorial of our 40th Anniversary year (in volume 41 issue 1) described how the journal came into being, thanks to the considerable motivation of Professor Klimeš, followed up by the dedication and diligence of Professor Peter Biggs and Dr L.N. (Jim) Payne as the second and third Editors-in-Chief (EiC). Photographs of Professors Klimeš and Biggs were displayed on the redesigned front cover of our February issue and on the cover the current issue you will see photographs of Dr Payne and Professor Dave Cavanagh who served as EiC for 10 and 12 years respectively. Both showed great commitment and enthusiasm and each continued to extend the success and progress of the journal. Having taken over from Dave Cavanagh in the summer of 2009, I fully appreciate the amount of time and effort that is needed to maintain standards, let alone develop the journal further. If Professor Klimeš can be regarded as successfully incubating and hatching Avian Pathology, then Peter Biggs was responsible for rearing a very healthy offspring and both Jim Payne and Dave Cavanagh have maintained and improved its health and status.
Below you can see the changing face of the journal over the years:
This issue (41-2) features another of our special Anniversary reviews. It is entitled ‘The long view: a selective review of 40 years of coccidiosis research’ and it is written by Martin Shirley and Hyun Lillehoj. As with the previous reviews in this series, this article provides a fascinating overview of the last 40 years for both the expert and the non-expert in coccidiosis and also looks to the future. It describes a selection of significant advances made in the 1970s and how these were built upon subsequently. It also reviews more recent developments in molecular and cellular studies and how they have laid the foundations for promising new prospects for control.
It was very timely that David Chapman recently submitted a review of the career of a highly respected American coccidiologist, Dr Thomas Jeffers, and we are pleased to be able to publish this review immediately following the special Anniversary review in this issue.
