Editorial
Clinical and Translational Science (CTS): 2005–2015 Arthur M. Feldman, M.D., Ph.D.
In 2005, Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health, posited that: “It is the responsibility of those of us involved in today’s biomedical research enterprise to translate the remarkable scientific innovations we are witnessing into health gains for the nation.”1 To attain this goal, he announced the launch of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards. The CTSAs would provide academic institutions the resources with which to bridge traditional bench and clinical research, develop methodologies for bringing bench discoveries into medical practice more expeditiously, create innovative models for training both undergraduates and graduates in the clinical and translational sciences, and apply advances in medical informatics and community-based research to improve patient care. More importantly, the CTSAs introduced the moniker “clinical and translational science” into the lexicon of American medicine and science. Recognizing that this new area of science would need a forum for sharing news, ideas and research results, a group began discussions in 2005 about the creation of a journal focused on translational medicine. Those discussions were formalized in a meeting at the Union League of Philadelphia in 2006 and led to the publication of the first issue of CTS—Clinical and Translational Science in May of 2008. The members of the group that met at the Union League are represented today in the list of associate editors on the masthead of CTS. Blackwell Publishing, a family-owned Oxford, United Kingdom, publishing house that published its first book in 1897, was the initial publisher of CTS thanks to the efforts of Steven Korn and Laura Colantoni. However, prior to the first issue, and with the support of Danette Somers, Wiley became the publisher of CTS following its purchase of Blackwell. In 2008, Dr. Barry Coller, Physician in Chief, Vice President for Medical Affairs and Director of the CTSA at the Rockefeller Institute and a group of colleagues from various CTSAs from across the country founded the Society of Clinical and Translational Science. CTS soon became “an” official journal of the Society as well as “an” official journal of the Association of Patient-Oriented Research. In 2012, the Society for Clinical and Translational Science (SCTS), the Association for Clinical Research Training and the Association for Patient-Oriented Research (APOR) merged to form the Association of Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS).2 CTS became “the” official journal of the new Association in the same year in order to support its missions: to promote research, education, advocacy, and mentoring to improve human health. The CTS journal has not been immune to the exigencies of the world of publishing. Several years ago, Wiley discontinued the print edition of CTS providing only the online journal
to readers and access to the online edition was limited to libraries with an institutional subscription to the journal or to the relatively few individual members of ACTS. Authors could elect to have their full articles accessible to anyone through PubMed or other search engines if they were willing to pay an “open-access” fee. The journal has continued to publish the abstracts of the yearly Joint Association Scientific Meeting, an In the News section that provides up-to-date information about new funding opportunities and other news of interest to translational scientists, commentaries from individual CTSA’s and an editorial from the President of the Association. While we continued to publish manuscripts reflecting the large spectrum of the clinical and translational sciences, we found that we were the home for a group of translational sciences, CTS also became a primary home for manuscripts that did not fit with the focus of any competing journal: articles related to community engagement, mentoring, education and newly developed fields such as population health, comparative health informatics and research ethics. Indeed, despite a blossoming number of “translational science” journals, CTS has maintained a healthy backlog of accepted manuscripts. In late 2015, the ACTS was informed that John Wiley & Sons, Inc., consistent with the contractual relationship between the journal and the publisher, would terminate its relationship with the Association in 90 days and that the ownership of the journal had transferred from Wiley to the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT). At the same time, I was informed that my contract, set to end December 30, 2015, would not be renewed by the ASCPT and that going forward, the ASCPT would select both its own editor and its own editorial board for CTS. ASCPT has a subscription journal, the Journal of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and our understanding is that CTS will serve as an “open-access” journal to complement their subscription journal. The creation of open-access journals “downstream” of subscription journals is becoming an increasingly frequent paradigm in the publishing industry. One need only look at the American Heart Association family of journals (Journal of the American Heart Association— JAHA), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMAmedicine, JAMA-opthalmology), and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC Heart Failure) to see the evolution of this paradigm. Indeed, even the Journal of Clinical Investigation is reported to be considering creation of an open-access journal to enable them to publish articles “downstream” of their subscription journal. Over the past four months we have worked assiduously to create a smooth transition from Wiley/ACTS to ASCPT and I am happy to say that every manuscript submitted to CTS prior to October 2015 will be published prior to the end of 2015 under the original rubric and therefore, without publication costs to the authors.
Executive Dean, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Chief Academic Officer, Temple University Health System, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Correspondence: Arthur M. Feldman ([email protected]) DOI: 10.1111/cts.12367
WWW.CTSJOURNAL.COM
VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 6
621
In 1884, William Osler and a group of colleagues formed the first medical and research society in America, the American Clinical and Climatologic Association, with the goal of improving medical research, education and clinical care. Its members espoused the belief that the best treatment for tuberculosis was to place patients in an ideal climate. (http://www.accasociety. org) In 1886, senior leaders of American medicine formed the Association of American Physicians (AAP) in an effort to provide an opportunity for America’s growing cadre of clinical scientists to communicate and to interact socially and with a focus on pathology-based research including postmortem findings. In 1909, a group of young scientists formed the American Society for the Advancement of Clinical Investigation with a focus on understanding the biologic basis of disease (later changed to the American Society of Clinical Investigation—ASCI) and in their first meeting in Washington DC, the group listened to a lecture from a guest speaker and several scientific presentations. These three societies set the bar for future associations of physicians and scientists in that they have met yearly since their founding and have communicated with each other through society journals. The society journal that emanated from the ACCA in 1892 (The Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatologic Association) and from the AAP/ASCI (The Journal of Clinical Investigation) in the late 1940’s, continue to publish today. An unofficial “publications committee” of the ACTS has been meeting over the past 6 months to find a way forward for ACTS and hopefully news of a phoenix rising will be forthcoming in the near future because history has taught us that a successful society needs a successful journal to advance its interest in science, research and advocacy.
622
VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 6
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the large number of individuals who were critical to the success of the journal from the recognition in 2005 of the need for a journal focused on translational science to the completion of this last issue under my tenure as Editorin-Chief. Shawn Morton of Wiley has been a supportive publisher who has kept us on track over the past 5 years and facilitated the transition to the ASCPT. Dr. Steven Reis served as Editor for the CTSA Profile Section of CTS and has continuously commissioned enlightening articles documenting innovative programs or novel structures that have facilitated discovery and or training amongst the growing number of clinical and translational science awardees. Each of the Society/Association’s presidents have fully supported the journal and contributed to its growth: Drs. Barry Coller, Anantha Shekhar, Michael Lichtenstein, and Rebecca Jackson. The Associate Editors and the members of the Editorial Board have not only contributed to the journal but have also reviewed manuscripts and provided important insights and comments and our Deputy Editor, Scott Waldman, has been an excellent sounding board when controversial manuscripts or commentaries have crossed my desk. We hope that CTS has served the community of translational scientists well and has helped to push our discipline towards the CTS goals set by Dr. Zerhouni ten years ago.
References 1. Zerhouni EA. Translational and clinical science--time for a new vision. N Engl J Med. 2005; 353: 1621–1623.
2. Pienta KJ, Gelato MC, Lichtenstein MJ. Forging the association for clinical and translational science (acts). Clin Transl Sci. 2012; 5: 117–118.
WWW.CTSJOURNAL.COM
Clinical and Translational Science (CTS): 2005–2015 Arthur M. Feldman, M.D., Ph.D.
In 2005, Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health, posited that: “It is the responsibility of those of us involved in today’s biomedical research enterprise to translate the remarkable scientific innovations we are witnessing into health gains for the nation.”1 To attain this goal, he announced the launch of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards. The CTSAs would provide academic institutions the resources with which to bridge traditional bench and clinical research, develop methodologies for bringing bench discoveries into medical practice more expeditiously, create innovative models for training both undergraduates and graduates in the clinical and translational sciences, and apply advances in medical informatics and community-based research to improve patient care. More importantly, the CTSAs introduced the moniker “clinical and translational science” into the lexicon of American medicine and science. Recognizing that this new area of science would need a forum for sharing news, ideas and research results, a group began discussions in 2005 about the creation of a journal focused on translational medicine. Those discussions were formalized in a meeting at the Union League of Philadelphia in 2006 and led to the publication of the first issue of CTS—Clinical and Translational Science in May of 2008. The members of the group that met at the Union League are represented today in the list of associate editors on the masthead of CTS. Blackwell Publishing, a family-owned Oxford, United Kingdom, publishing house that published its first book in 1897, was the initial publisher of CTS thanks to the efforts of Steven Korn and Laura Colantoni. However, prior to the first issue, and with the support of Danette Somers, Wiley became the publisher of CTS following its purchase of Blackwell. In 2008, Dr. Barry Coller, Physician in Chief, Vice President for Medical Affairs and Director of the CTSA at the Rockefeller Institute and a group of colleagues from various CTSAs from across the country founded the Society of Clinical and Translational Science. CTS soon became “an” official journal of the Society as well as “an” official journal of the Association of Patient-Oriented Research. In 2012, the Society for Clinical and Translational Science (SCTS), the Association for Clinical Research Training and the Association for Patient-Oriented Research (APOR) merged to form the Association of Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS).2 CTS became “the” official journal of the new Association in the same year in order to support its missions: to promote research, education, advocacy, and mentoring to improve human health. The CTS journal has not been immune to the exigencies of the world of publishing. Several years ago, Wiley discontinued the print edition of CTS providing only the online journal
to readers and access to the online edition was limited to libraries with an institutional subscription to the journal or to the relatively few individual members of ACTS. Authors could elect to have their full articles accessible to anyone through PubMed or other search engines if they were willing to pay an “open-access” fee. The journal has continued to publish the abstracts of the yearly Joint Association Scientific Meeting, an In the News section that provides up-to-date information about new funding opportunities and other news of interest to translational scientists, commentaries from individual CTSA’s and an editorial from the President of the Association. While we continued to publish manuscripts reflecting the large spectrum of the clinical and translational sciences, we found that we were the home for a group of translational sciences, CTS also became a primary home for manuscripts that did not fit with the focus of any competing journal: articles related to community engagement, mentoring, education and newly developed fields such as population health, comparative health informatics and research ethics. Indeed, despite a blossoming number of “translational science” journals, CTS has maintained a healthy backlog of accepted manuscripts. In late 2015, the ACTS was informed that John Wiley & Sons, Inc., consistent with the contractual relationship between the journal and the publisher, would terminate its relationship with the Association in 90 days and that the ownership of the journal had transferred from Wiley to the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT). At the same time, I was informed that my contract, set to end December 30, 2015, would not be renewed by the ASCPT and that going forward, the ASCPT would select both its own editor and its own editorial board for CTS. ASCPT has a subscription journal, the Journal of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and our understanding is that CTS will serve as an “open-access” journal to complement their subscription journal. The creation of open-access journals “downstream” of subscription journals is becoming an increasingly frequent paradigm in the publishing industry. One need only look at the American Heart Association family of journals (Journal of the American Heart Association— JAHA), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMAmedicine, JAMA-opthalmology), and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC Heart Failure) to see the evolution of this paradigm. Indeed, even the Journal of Clinical Investigation is reported to be considering creation of an open-access journal to enable them to publish articles “downstream” of their subscription journal. Over the past four months we have worked assiduously to create a smooth transition from Wiley/ACTS to ASCPT and I am happy to say that every manuscript submitted to CTS prior to October 2015 will be published prior to the end of 2015 under the original rubric and therefore, without publication costs to the authors.
Executive Dean, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Chief Academic Officer, Temple University Health System, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Correspondence: Arthur M. Feldman ([email protected]) DOI: 10.1111/cts.12367
WWW.CTSJOURNAL.COM
VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 6
621
In 1884, William Osler and a group of colleagues formed the first medical and research society in America, the American Clinical and Climatologic Association, with the goal of improving medical research, education and clinical care. Its members espoused the belief that the best treatment for tuberculosis was to place patients in an ideal climate. (http://www.accasociety. org) In 1886, senior leaders of American medicine formed the Association of American Physicians (AAP) in an effort to provide an opportunity for America’s growing cadre of clinical scientists to communicate and to interact socially and with a focus on pathology-based research including postmortem findings. In 1909, a group of young scientists formed the American Society for the Advancement of Clinical Investigation with a focus on understanding the biologic basis of disease (later changed to the American Society of Clinical Investigation—ASCI) and in their first meeting in Washington DC, the group listened to a lecture from a guest speaker and several scientific presentations. These three societies set the bar for future associations of physicians and scientists in that they have met yearly since their founding and have communicated with each other through society journals. The society journal that emanated from the ACCA in 1892 (The Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatologic Association) and from the AAP/ASCI (The Journal of Clinical Investigation) in the late 1940’s, continue to publish today. An unofficial “publications committee” of the ACTS has been meeting over the past 6 months to find a way forward for ACTS and hopefully news of a phoenix rising will be forthcoming in the near future because history has taught us that a successful society needs a successful journal to advance its interest in science, research and advocacy.
622
VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 6
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the large number of individuals who were critical to the success of the journal from the recognition in 2005 of the need for a journal focused on translational science to the completion of this last issue under my tenure as Editorin-Chief. Shawn Morton of Wiley has been a supportive publisher who has kept us on track over the past 5 years and facilitated the transition to the ASCPT. Dr. Steven Reis served as Editor for the CTSA Profile Section of CTS and has continuously commissioned enlightening articles documenting innovative programs or novel structures that have facilitated discovery and or training amongst the growing number of clinical and translational science awardees. Each of the Society/Association’s presidents have fully supported the journal and contributed to its growth: Drs. Barry Coller, Anantha Shekhar, Michael Lichtenstein, and Rebecca Jackson. The Associate Editors and the members of the Editorial Board have not only contributed to the journal but have also reviewed manuscripts and provided important insights and comments and our Deputy Editor, Scott Waldman, has been an excellent sounding board when controversial manuscripts or commentaries have crossed my desk. We hope that CTS has served the community of translational scientists well and has helped to push our discipline towards the CTS goals set by Dr. Zerhouni ten years ago.
References 1. Zerhouni EA. Translational and clinical science--time for a new vision. N Engl J Med. 2005; 353: 1621–1623.
2. Pienta KJ, Gelato MC, Lichtenstein MJ. Forging the association for clinical and translational science (acts). Clin Transl Sci. 2012; 5: 117–118.
WWW.CTSJOURNAL.COM
