Dear Colleagues,
the launch of a new journal is always welcome as a sign of vitality for a scientific community, but the announcement by Gerhard Ecker, in the article below, of MedChemComm, a new journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) for rapid communications in medicinal chemistry, has a special impact for EFMC (and, in some respect, also for our newsletter...).
MedChemComm, whose first issue is expected to be released by mid 2010, is the result of a partnership between RSC and EFMC, both strongly committed in ensuring the new journal with a very high scientific level and an excellent technical quality.
EFMC does not publish the journal by itself, but cooperates with RSC, a non profit organization, to sponsor and influence a cutting-edge journal in the field of medicinal chemistry with the very ambitious scope of assuring a top-quality instrument to disseminate rapid communications. MedChemComm will not overlap with established journals, but rather will complement, in worldwide oriented way, the existing offer of high quality publications with specific focus and scope.
In some ways, the launch of MedChemComm is the ‘end of the beginning’ of a long story between EFMC and scientific journals. The special nature of EFMC as a federation of Societies, prevents the creation of its own journal, not only for reasons related to national languages but also for the commitment of many national societies in publishing their own, often very well reputed, journals. Don’t miss, in this respect, a very interesting article by Henk Timmerman which will be published in the next issue of the newsletter.
The partnership between RSC and EFMC is an attempt, I am sure very successful, to conciliate the demand for a presence of EFMC to drive journal strategies with the need of preserving the identity and the scope of existing of national and private initiatives.
As a part of the agreement, the paper issues of MedChemComm will also contain our newsletter. We will continue to distribute the newsletter to all the registered members through the e.mail list, and the newsletter will be available through the EFMC web site (www.efmc.info/medchemwatch/). MedChemComm will be another, important, way to disseminate information. We are sure that having the newsletter coming together with a scientific journal will increase the visibility of the contents and will also increase the eagerness of authorship. Thus, I strongly advise everyone would like to contribute to send us small articles, or comments, or suggestions, and it will be our commitment to give them the highest visibility.
This issue of MedChemWatch, the number seven in the series, contains very interesting presentations and some innovations.
Gisbert Schneider comments, in his Perspective, the state of the art of Virtual Screening in drug discovery, and I am sure his thoughtful contribution will stimulate debate.
Peter Seeberger,winner of the 2008 UCB Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry, presents his new lab, at the Department of Biomolecular Systems – Max-Planck Institute for Colloids and Surfaces, Potsdam.
The idea of presenting laboratories of excellence around Europe aims at disseminating the top quality level of research, but also at providing information for potential collaborations, graduate and post-graduate positions, or for the identification of common research interest. On this basis, we thought it as appropriate to extend these presentations also to labs driven by younger researchers and to SMEs. Two SMEs, Chemotargets and Inte:ligands, and one lab, driven by Karl Gademann at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), open this series. Ideas and suggestion for future contributions are very welcome !
Last, but not the least, have a look to the EFMC events. Also for the remaining part of this year 2009 and for 2010, there is a plenty of symposia, accredited and sponsored schools, and short courses which surely fit with the interests and needs of European medicinal chemists.
Gabriele Costantino
Editor
