Letter to the friends of AJP-Lung

Dear friends and colleagues,

I hope this email finds you all well and good spirits.  I am writing to update you on a number of journal related issues

 1.    We have two Deputy Editors and eight Associate Editors with wide expertise in all areas of lung physiology, pathobiology and cell and molecular biology. In addition, two or our AEs (Lester Kobzik and Irina Petrache) and one of the Deputy Editors (Prakash YS) are practicing physicians (in addition to being outstanding scientists) and have broad expertise and appreciation of clinical studies. Remember, that our policy is that all papers will be reviewed.  Our editorial board consists of the cream of the crop and their reviews are highly informative and timely and always help to improve the quality of each paper.  The Associate Editors always provide succinct summaries of what needs to be done to move the paper forward.  

2.    AJP-Lung submissions are 38% higher this year compared to last year.  Our time for first decision for research manuscripts has decreased from 31 to 22 days.  Furthermore, we spare no effort to process revised manuscripts as soon as possible.   I would like to thank you for submitting your outstanding manuscripts to AJP-Lung. 

3.  Our impact factor has increased two years in a row and now stands at 4.08 (http://www.the-aps.org/mm/publications/journals/impact-factors.html).   I am very proud to tell you that we the highest ranked journal publishing mainly basic science and translational research articles on all aspects of pulmonary biology.  In the last year we have received a number of outstanding submissions of clinical articles as well.

 3.   We have revamped our Editorial Board.  I suggested to a number of members who had been in the board for a while to step down to make room for the younger generation.  This suggestion was very well received by most and some even mentioned that “they wished that other journals followed suit.” Please see http://ajplung.physiology.org/edboard for an updated list of editorial board members.  Additional nominations and self-nominations are welcome.  Please remember that each editorial board member must review at least 12 manuscripts per year (along with any revisions of a manuscript) and publish at least one manuscript per year in AJP-Lung.

4.       We now have a standard policy on appeals : http://ajplung.blogspot.com/2015/09/ajp-lung-policy-on-appeals_17.html. We stress that for an appeal to be successful, the authors must point out factual errors in the review process.  Differences of opinion are not grounds for an appeal.  If the authors have additional data that were not available to the reviewers, they will be invited to submit a new manuscript and highlight the additional information in their letter to the Editor.  The new manuscript will then be assigned to new reviewers for evaluation.  There is no guarantee that it will be accepted.

5.     We have eight active Calls for Papers (http://ajplung.physiology.org/). We make every effort to expedite  the processing of manuscripts submitted in response to Calls for Papers and highlight the best ones by Editorials and Perspectives.  Furthermore each paper is published under a heading listing the appropriate Call for Papers.  We welcome ideas for new calls and volunteers to act as guest Associate Editors.

6.  New feature (suggested and beta tested by Rory Morty): During the last three years I abandoned the “Editorial Focus” articles for a number of reasons: First, they were very seldom cited; Second, since they referred to a recently published article they did not help our impact factor; third, it was very difficult to find authors.  However, Rory came up with the brilliant idea of crossing the “Editorial Focus” with a Perspective.  The editorial/perspective still refers to a recently published article; however it also refers to 8-12 papers published in AJP-Lung during the last two years.   They will be formatted like a regular article (including an abstract) and contain either a table or a figure.  The first article (written by Rory of course) should appear in articles in press shortly.  Please let me know  if you are interested in writing a perspective on a paper that has either been published in the last six months or it is currently listed under papers in press

 8.    Perspectives and reviews:  We have had some brilliant reviews (Steven C. Pugliese February 1, 2015 : L229-L252;Harrod, February 15, 2015 : L307-L313; Yuan March 1, 2015 : L403-L415; Lykkedegn April 1, 2015 : L587-L602; Tomankova April 1, 2015 : L603-L618; Brune April 15, 2015 : L731-L745; Albertine May 15, 2015 : L983-L1001; Meyer June 15, 2015 : L1189-L1201), two Physiology in Medicine articles (Potoka et al.  February 15, 2015 : L314-L324; Mulugeta et al. September 15, 2015 : L507-L525).  A number of other reviews and perspective are listed  in “articles in press”; several more are in review. I am currently pleading with a number of authors to complete their promised submissions so they can be reviewed and hopefully accepted by October 15th (so they can appear in final form by December 15th).

9.    Awards:  AJP-Lung will be sponsoring an award for best paper by junior investigator published 2015.  Prakash and I are sponsoring a number of additional awards with private funds. These award announcements can be found at http://www.the-aps.org/mm/awards/sections/Resp#new as well as in our Facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/AJPLung/timeline/.  Please nominate our younger colleagues who benefit tremendously from the recognition.  Self-nominations are welcome as well.

l10.  As you know we have both a Facebook page and a blog.  We need help with finding and posting items of interest to our readers.  Please consider sending short communications to Amy (amcever@emory.edu) for posting.  They may include commentaries on articles in press or on articles in other journal.
 
Additional comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated.  On behalf of AJP-Lung I would like to thank each one of your for your time and effort in reviewing manuscripts.  PLEASE CONSIDER SUBMITTING YOUR BEST ARTICLES TO AJP-LUNG.  OUR REVIEWS WILL INCREASE THE IMPACT AND QUALITY OF THESE ARTICLES.  FURTHERMORE I AM CONFIDENT THAT OUR IMPACT FACTOR WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE

 With best regards

Sadis



Sadis Matalon, Ph.D., Dr.Sc. (Hon.) | Distinguished Professor,
Alice McNeal Endowed Chair | Vice Chair and Director,
Division of Molecular and Translational Biomedicine
Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
Director, Pulmonary Injury and Repair Center
UAB | The University of Alabama at Birmingham
BMRII 224 | 901 19th St. S. | Birmingham, AL 35294
P: 205.934.4231 | smatalon@uabmc.edu

Editor-in-Chief | American Journal of Physiology –
Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology
http://ajplung.physiology.org/