Editorial1: Changes at the journal

International Journal of Leprosy and Other Mycobacterial Diseases, Jun 2003 by Scollard, David M

The cover:

Although this is not the most important change at the JOURNAL, it is probably the cause of the greatest number of questions. As the December, 2002 issue was going to press, the printer advised us that the cover material the JOURNAL had used for so many years was no longer being manufactured. We have tried to find a cover that was as similar as possible to the old material in order to preserve the traditional appearance of the JOURNAL.

Staff changes:

With the change of editor there have been a few other staff changes, also. Mrs. Rosemary Heard, who so able and diligently took over the Assistant Editor's duties after the death of Dee Goodman, decided that she did not want to continue in this role. The Assistant Editor is the person who actually puts this Journal together, in its countless details, and this is a great deal of work. Rosemary put in many hours of very dedicated effort in order to maintain the quality and appearance of this JOURNAL, for which we are most grateful. We accepted her resignation with regret but with many thanks for her very capable effort.

We were fortunate that we were able to find a new Assistant Editor without too much delay, in the person of Ms. Elizabeth ("Beth") Foos. Beth is a teacher and poet, as well as the mother of a young boy. She has proven herself to be a fast learner concerning both the job and the somewhat unfamiliar medical and biological language involved. Those of you who have manuscripts accepted for publication will be seeing the evidence of her attention to detail.

In these many changes we have had the good fortune to have one point of continuity, in the person of Ms. Renee Painter, who handles the correspondence and related office tasks for the JOURNAL. Those who submit manuscripts or have questions about submitting them will continue to have the benefit of her capable and reassuring touch.

Abstracts replace summaries:

Perhaps the most noticeable change in the format of the JOURNAL is the decision to place an abstract at the beginning of the paper, rather than a summary at the end. This reflects the manner in which most individuals read the medical and scientific literature, as well as the manner in which indexing services such as PubMed present the information.

New features:

The JOURNAL hopes to be able to regularly present invited editorials in the form of commentaries on recent work of major relevance to leprosy. We are most fortunate to have such a commentary beginning on page 115 in this issue, written by Dr. Ellen Buschman and Dr. Emil Skamene of the Center for Host Resistance at McGill University in Montreal. Dr. Skamene is an eminent authority on the genetics of innate susceptibility or resistance to intracellular pathogens, and he has kindly agreed to discuss the work recently published in Nature by Dr. Erwin Shurr and his colleagues on their finding of a locus on chromosome 6 that appears to control susceptibility to leprosy in man. (See Current Literature, p. 183.)

We are also adding a calendar of forthcoming meetings to the JOURNAL, and invite members to send us information about important regional, national, and international meetings that are of interest to our membership. This may include not only meetings specifically devoted to leprosy-related issues, but major academic meetings in which leprosy-related issues will be presented and discussed.

Electronic publishing:

Finally, we are continuing to work on the addition of an electronic version of the JOURNAL, available through the internet. We invite our readership to give us feedback on how well this is (or is not) working for them. We know that an internet presence for this JOURNAL will greatly expand our reach to many medical and scientific specialties, but we also want to be sure that we try to address any difficulties encountered by our members who are spread across the globe.

1 Editorial opinions expressed are those of the writers.