Future Directions at PLOS Computational Biology
This week PLOS Computational Biology publishes a pair of Editorials by Philip E. Bourne and Ruth Nussinov, who outline some important leadership shifts and point to exciting new developments in a journal that has both influenced and been influenced by the emergent field of computational biology. These developments will reflect an even richer collection of research articles and even more innovation in scholarly communication.
After seven years as the sole Editor-in-Chief, carrying much of the unseen day-to-day editorial work of running a community journal, Phil Bourne is transitioning to the new role of Founding Editor-in-Chief.
Phil will continue to provide guidance and direction to PLOS Computational Biology’s senior leadership, as well as managing innovative projects such as Topic Pages, a move towards data publishing, and our popular Ten Simple Rules series.
We’re delighted to welcome Ruth Nussinov to her new role as Editor-in-Chief. Ruth has been a crucial and enthusiastic member of the senior editorial board since 2008 and, as Deputy Editor-in-Chief since 2010 has worked in partnership with Phil to create the journal we see today. In the past few months the ranks of our senior editorial board have been boosted by the promotion of Arne Elofsson, William Stafford Noble, Jason Papin and Rob de Boer to Deputy Editors.
In response to discussions among the editorial board and the community, PLOS Computational Biology is taking this opportunity to expand the journal’s scope by including papers describing outstanding methods of exceptional importance that have been shown to, or have the promise to provide new biological insights. We also plan to enhance the journal’s Reviews section, with the aim of publishing thought-provoking, unmissable Reviews in key topics in computational biology.
As a community journal, PLOS Computational Biology is your journal, and we want to know what you think. Please send your thoughts to ploscompbiol[at]staging.plos.org or add them as comments to this blog post. We’re always happy to hear from you.