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Editorial

The editorship of the foremost review journal in endocrinology is a serious responsibility. I want to assure the readers and contributors to Endocrine Reviews that as its new Editor-in-Chief I take this responsibility seriously. It is my goal not only to maintain the high quality and excellent readership statistics of the journal but to improve on them. My view of endocrinology coincides with that which is manifest in the pages of this journal and the other journals of our society and one that has become evident throughout the endocrine world. That view comes from the modern realization that endocrinology encompasses much more than once was thought. While we can still define hormones traditionally, i.e., those circulating signal substances made in one organ and acting at a distance, it is obvious that as we understand more about the mechanisms of cell-to-cell signaling, this simple definition breaks down. We find in the pages of our journals discussions of paracrine and intracrine actions of hormones, and of molecules labeled as cytokines, growth factors, etc. These new usages signify the general understanding that signaling molecules act at varying distances—intracellularly in the cell of origin, cell to cell locally, between cells within an organ, and organ to organ. Furthermore, it has become clear that traditional disciplines, each studying its own class of signaling systems, repeatedly find analogous, overlapping, and indeed identical mechanisms involving the same kinds of receptors and signaling systems. Increasingly, endocrinologists are recognizing this state of affairs, and we should do so by including the relevant literature in the pages of our journal.

Endocrine Reviews will therefore continue to provide cogent reviews of important topics, particularly with respect to endocrine-like signaling systems that bear special relevance to or interactions with the traditional hormones. We have the responsibility of conveying important information both for the most basic scientists and for clinicians. Therefore, we will include reviews that cover the range from practical important matters of patient care to translational research. Our selection of new Editorial Board members, Associate Editors, and Advisors has been made in an attempt to satisfy those readers’ needs. We invite our readership to make suggestions to us about what topics they would like to see included in Endocrine Reviews.

An unusual feature of Endocrine Reviews is that its articles undergo peer review before publication; thus, it is remarkable among review journals that authors who submit to it can justifiably cite their articles as reviewed journal articles. We are proud of this tradition and mention it not only because of that pride but also to remind contributors of the circumstances under which they submit articles. In fact, not all articles that are submitted to Endocrine Reviews, even those initially solicited by the Editors, are eventually accepted for publication. The details of how to prepare and send us articles are presented in our Instructions to Authors, which are published in the February, June, and October issues of the journal.

In the next five years it is our intent to publish articles that are forward-looking, that discuss new and emerging areas of endocrinology, likely to make changes in the practice of endocrine research and clinical care. In this endeavor, we will attempt to assist our readers in visualizing how their work and thinking are likely to be affected by major changes in the world of science, medical training, and practice.

Associated with Endocrine Reviews will be the continuing publication of Recent Progress in Hormone Research, under the editorship of Dr. Tony Means. This famous series of books provides a valuable, somewhat different perspective of endocrinology than ER. In Endocrine Reviews authors attempt to review a subject without excessive emphasis on their own contributions to the field. We encourage them to provide evaluations of the articles that they include in their review, so that readers will have a compendium of the published work, a bibliography to which they can refer, and also a thoughtful discussion of the usefulness of the reviewed results. Recent Progress in Hormone Research provides a volume that is more oriented around a single topic and contains reviews which cover an area while emphasizing the long-term contributions of each author’s own laboratory. Another difference between the two journals is that RPHR contains only invited manuscripts while the articles in ER are either invited or begin as outside proposals submitted to the Editors.

With thanks to The Endocrine Society for selecting me as the Editor-in-Chief for Endocrine Reviews for 2001–2005, I ask your help in keeping this journal at the top, both by contributing ideas to us for subject matter and content and participating in the preparation and analysis of the reviews we publish.

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