Here we are publishing the final issue of Molecular Endocrinology before its merger with Endocrinology. Next month we will have completed the transformation of the two journals into a new, comprehensive, basic science journal that will be entitled Endocrinology but will carry the tagline Molecular and Physiological Basis of Endocrine Health and Disease. Andrea Gore and I have written letters to Society members and editorials in our respective journals, as well as participated in many interviews and discussion groups, all of which have been geared toward explaining the reasoning behind this change and our hopes for the future of basic science publications in Society journals.
Stephen R. Hammes, MD, PhD
Molecular Endocrinology succeeded in doing exactly what it set out to do, which was to make the field so mainstream that scientists now have ample opportunity to expose the scientific world to their work through a myriad of journals.
That said, there is no need to go into this in any more detail, other than to state that the merger has more to do with Molecular Endocrinology's success than with anything else. As discussed in other perspectives in this month's final issue, the journal Molecular Endocrinology was created as a separate entity from Endocrinology because scientists in the emerging field of “molecular endocrinology” needed their own place to publish. At that time, Endocrinology was not particularly interested in taking these more detailed, mechanistic papers, and researchers needed a new journal that would allow them to show off their original and exciting work. Molecular Endocrinology has been an unequivocal success. Now, over 25 years later, the field has grown to such an extent that there are dozens of journals that publish papers in molecular endocrinology. In fact, in 2016, mechanistic, “molecular” data are needed for most papers that we read in Endocrinology. In short, Molecular Endocrinology succeeded in doing exactly what it set out to do, which was to make the field so mainstream that scientists now have ample opportunity to expose the scientific world to their work through a myriad of journals.
In this final issue of Molecular Endocrinology, we have chosen to celebrate its history and success by inviting previous Editors-in-Chief to write short perspectives on their experiences as members, many of them as pioneers in the field of molecular endocrinology. All of the leaders had their own styles and their own approaches; however, they shared one important feature: they worked selflessly for their colleagues and for the Society to give basic research a voice in endocrinology. These perspectives cover 25 years of Molecular Endocrinology, and I think that they offer a fascinating look into the history of the research field that we all love. I hope that all of our readers feel the same way.
For me, I have had 3 years to write essays and make videos that reflect my views of Molecular Endocrinology, so I will keep my comments short and sweet here. In summary, The Endocrine Society and Molecular Endocrinology have had a huge impact on my career, and I would not be where I am today without them. I can write this with complete certainty. Everything started in 2003, just a few years into my independent career, when I was looking for a place to publish a manuscript looking at how selective androgen receptor modulators regulate genomic, as opposed to nongenomic, androgen receptor signaling. The data in this paper exactly exemplified molecular endocrinology. When discussing where to publish with my boss and mentor Keith Parker, he suggested that I submit to Molecular Endocrinology. I did so and the paper flew through the review process. The reviewers' comments were fair and helpful, and within a few months, the paper was in press. In fact, I was so pleased with the results that the following year, I submitted another paper to Molecular Endocrinology, this one demonstrating the effects of steroids on mouse oocyte maturation (meiotic progression). This was our lab's first foray into mouse model systems, the subject was (and still is) controversial, and we were worried about what would happen. The reviewers were again fair and concise, and, to our delight, the article was chosen by John Cidlowski to be on the cover of the journal, 1 of 4 articles that my lab would eventually have represented on the cover. Around the same time, I met John, as well as his Associate Editor Don DeFranco, and they became two very important mentors for me, with Don eventually becoming one of my closest collaborators and friends. I published many more times in Molecular Endocrinology, I reviewed for the journal extensively, and I served on the Editorial Board for many years before finally becoming Editor-in-Chief. Through this work with the journal, I became involved in other Society projects and met some of the most amazing scientists and people, too many to list here. Again, as mentioned near the top of this paragraph, the journal was my portal into the Society, and I cannot adequately express my appreciation.
A lot is said these days about impact factors and their importance in career building. Some less insightful than Keith Parker suggested back in 2003 that I should stick to higher-impact journals if I wanted to be successful. Nobody will read articles published in Molecular Endocrinology, they maintained. With that in mind, I recently went back and looked at the citation numbers for papers that I published as a senior author in Molecular Endocrinology. Over the past 13 years, I have published 9 such papers, and they have been cited 585 times to date. This averages out to 65 citations per article, with several articles cited over 100 times, and almost all of them cited at least 35 times. Although these are not overwhelming numbers compared with those of many of the great scientists in the Society, 65 still seems like a pretty good personal “impact factor” to me, and I believe that it makes my point that an article's citation rate is not a reflection of the artificial impact factor of the journal in which it is published. Plus, rather than having to fight my way through journals run by noncolleagues, waiting up to a year before my papers were published, I had pleasant and meaningful experiences submitting to the Society journal. I was dealing with reviewers who had the most expertise to evaluate my paper and who were advocates for my research rather than its critics. For all these reasons, I plan to continue publishing in the merged journal. If people want to read my work (and I hope that they still do!), then that is where they will find it.
With these final thoughts, I end my three years as Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Endocrinology and will join Andrea Gore as a co-Editor-in-Chief of Endocrinology with its new Molecular and Physiological Basis of Endocrine Health and Disease tagline. We will continue to work hard for our Society colleagues and pledge to give every paper a fair shake, with fair reviews, as streamlined a review process as we can, and the best publicity opportunities possible through the Society. I again need to thank every Editor and reviewer who has helped me both as an author for over 12 years and also as an Editor-in-Chief for the past 3 years. If I could do it all again, I would not change a thing!
Acknowledgments
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Endocrine Society, 2055 L Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036. E-mail: molendo@endocrine.org.
