Over its long history, Journal of Cell Science has evolved in a number of ways. For example, the Editors announced in 1962 that they would be restricting the contents of the journal to cytology, and in 1966, they changed the name of the journal from ‘Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science’ to the much snappier ‘Journal of Cell Science’ (the title ‘Cell’ was considered, but thought to be too radical). As we are always striving to improve, we more recently surveyed our readers to find out what we were doing right, or wrong, with a view to making some changes. Readers told us that they valued Journal of Cell Science as a solid, reliable, quality journal. They loved that we are still free to publish in, that we are able to offer meeting support when it is increasingly difficult to raise funds, and that we offer Travelling Fellowships to PhD students and postdocs for collaborative visits to other laboratories (see Boxes 1 and 2). Readers didn't want us to limit our scope by focusing on particular areas, or implement trendy gimmicks – the predominant message was: ‘if it ain't broke, don't fix it’.
Free to publish: no page or colour charges
Editorial decisions made by research-active academics
Rapid publication, including Advance publication
Commentaries and ‘Cell Science at a Glance’ poster articles highlighting key research topics
All articles freely available online six months after publication; free online archive dating back to 1853
Usage statistics available online for all articles
Author-pays Open Access publishing option
Deposition of manuscripts in PubMed Central for authors with funder mandates
Copyediting by experienced scientific editors
Travelling Fellowships for graduate students and postdocs
JCS Prize for best eligible paper of the year
Sandra Bermeo, a PhD student at the University of Sydney, Australia, took advantage of a Travelling Fellowship from Journal of Cell Science to visit the laboratory of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) biology researcher Professor Moustapha Kassem at Southern Denmark University, Odense. Here, Sandra found that colleagues were keen to share their experience, demonstrate techniques and show how they approached experiments. She gained hands-on experience of the optical image system IVIS Spectrum and the content image system Operetta. She also experienced the handling, knock-in and -down transfection, and differentiation process of several primary cells and cell lines, and the creation of a stable expressing cell line by retrovirus-mediated infection.
Sandra was able to continue the work of her research group and gain further insight and inspiration. She performed a set of experiments to validate a gene as a therapeutic target, in this case for regulating osteoblast differentiation from MSCs. She was introduced to the IVIS Spectrum in vivo imaging system and colleagues explained the analysis and results of previous in vivo measurements.
The experience gained from Professor Kassem's laboratory exposed Sandra to new techniques and created new contacts and connections. At the end of her time there, Sandra felt part of the team – something for which she feels very grateful.
However, we do want to be responsive to the changing needs of the cell biology community, and so have recently introduced a number of initiatives: we created a Tools & Techniques article type; we appointed a Guest Editor in 3D Cell Biology and have announced a corresponding Special Issue on the topic, to be published in late 2016; and we initiated an interview series, called Cell Scientists to Watch, featuring up-and-coming scientists. You may have also noticed that the journal website has a new look. We have moved to a new, more responsive platform to provide a better user experience, and we hope you like it as much as we do. We have de-cluttered our pages, making it easier to find information, and focused on providing quality PDFs; html is still important for immediate learning and discovery, but the biology community have told us that the PDF is key, and we have listened. This new look is part of a larger re-branding project by our publisher, The Company of Biologists. If you are familiar with our sister journals, you'll spot a consistent look between us.
Although you are probably familiar with Journal of Cell Science, you may not have known that the journal is part of The Company of Biologists. Journal of Cell Science is one of five journals in the Company's portfolio: Journal of Cell Science, Development, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open (BiO). BiO (author-pays Open Access), is the Company's newest journal, and was launched in response to the biology community's feedback on the ‘pain to publish’ (read the editorial in BiO: http://bio.biologists.org/content/1/1/1.full). BiO extends our service to the research community by providing an opportunity to publish good-quality sound research in a timely fashion without a requirement for perceived impact. Authors can of course submit their papers directly to BiO, but Journal of Cell Science also offers an easy transfer option to BiO for papers that do not meet our editorial requirements: there is no need to reformat the manuscript; any existing reviews can be transferred, potentially speeding up the decision-making process and publication of the article; and there is the opportunity to revise the article in response to reviewer feedback. See Box 3 for some examples of papers published in BiO that may be of interest to Journal of Cell Science readers.
Each of The Company of Biologists' journals are well known to their respective communities, but it is only through the Company that we are able to do what we do. Established in 1925 by the distinguished zoologist George Parker Bidder III, The Company of Biologists became a UK charity in 1952. It exists not to profit shareholders, but to support biologists and inspire advances in biology through its publications, its promotion of research and study, and its development of connections and communities. Journal of Cell Science offers support for numerous meetings and workshops, including Keystone Symposia, Gordon Conferences and EMBO workshops, but The Company of Biologists itself is also a generous financial supporter of the British Society for Cell Biology, and sponsors numerous conferences and workshops through its Meeting Grants. In addition, the Company hosts its own Workshops and Meetings, including the upcoming ‘Cell Dynamics: Membrane–Cytoskeleton Interface’ meeting hosted by Journal of Cell Science in Southbridge, MA in May 2017 (watch for announcements about this exciting meeting). The new branding of The Company of Biologists and its journals, highlighted by our new logo and mastheads (Box 4), is intended to increase awareness of the important work carried out by the Company, and strengthen the connections between the journals, the Company and its activities.
The Company of Biologists logo
New Journal of Cell Science masthead
The Company of Biologists holds firm to its belief that profits from publishing the hard work of biologists should support scientific discovery and help develop future scientists. The Company is the foundation upon which Journal of Cell Science and its four sister journals are built, and we are all proud to be at the heart of an organisation that reinvests its profits back into the biological sciences. Supporting biologists, inspiring biology – it's what we do.
