Process Biochemistry 40 (2005) iii
Editorial Process Biochemistry (PRBI) is a multidisciplinary journal and covers all the aspects of bioprocessing with application of bioactive molecules or elements and living organisms for the production of useful metabolites or materials or the removal of toxic compounds. Compared to past 10 years, PRBI has enjoyed a steady growth in publication and a much wider range of authorship and readership. In this very optimistic and rapidly moving period of modern biotechnology, we feel greatly honored to be appointed as Editors of this journal. By taking this opportunity, we would like first to thank the former Editor, Professor CM Brown, for his leading role and significant dedication. We also appreciate the assistant editor Mrs. Sarah Craigie and all the editorial board members led by Professor Brown for their important contributions and efforts to PRBI. With this new departure, we now have a reorganized international editorial board, which consists of very active and highly respected scientists from many parts of the world. As it is just published, we have also an updated journal scope. Based on the concept – taking a cell as a bioprocessing factory, we welcome submissions on broad biological processes, which are closely related with the food, pharmaceutical/healthcare, energy and environmental protection industries. The Journal will cover its naturally leading topics: biotechnology processes, biochemical and bioreactor engineering, fermentations, and its life science aspects in regard of processes, biocatalysis, enzyme engineering and biotransformation, downstream processing, modeling, optimization and control techniques. But the Journal, which must follow the rapid evolution of the techniques, has also for scope the following aspects when related to processes, raw materials and products: quantitative microbial physiology, stress response, signal transduction; genetic engineering and metabolic engineering; proteomics, functional genomics, metabolomics, and bioinformatics; chiral compounds production, cell free protein system, high-throughput screening, in-vivo/in-vitro evolution, enzyme immobilization, enzyme reaction in non-aqueous media; mass transfer, mixing, scale-up and scale-down, bioprocess monitoring, bio-manufacturing; cell culture and antibody engineering: animal and plant cell, algae, micro-algae, extremophile, antibody screening and production; environmental biotechnology: biodegradation, bioremediation,
doi:10.1016/S0032-9592(05)00105-6
wastewater treatment, biosorption and bioaccumulation; bio-commodity engineering: biomass, bio-refinery, bioenergy; bioseparation, purification, protein refolding and so on. So the field of PBRI is very large. Being so large, we must and will be careful about the quality. Indeed we would like to induce an improvement of the initial manuscripts. We particularly encourage the submission of manuscripts where there will be positive and synergistic aspects concerning the utilization of multidisciplinary approaches, for example, articles which demonstrate the utility of modeling for physiological studies, or the impact of proteomic studies in a final phase analysis of a process. In a word, transdisciplinary experimental results. The novelty and significance are our key points in manuscript selection. We believe that PRBI must have an intimate integration of current biology and engineering, and must or can become an important link between more fundamental work (life science aspects) and applied researches, which are basic engineering studies, and however also fundamental. By establishing a nurtured, rigorous and fair review process, we intend to have an as rapid as possible publication, shortening the review period at the maximum and further enhancing the journal reputation by attracting high quality manuscripts. Our objective is to render PRBI more attractive for the readers. Here, the new journal on-line submission and review process (on-line Elsevier Editing System, http://ees.elsevier.com/prbi/) will be very useful. The categories of papers will also be increased by setting: Full Length Articles (FLA), Short Communications (SCO), and Reviews (REV). Our aim is to improve the impact of PRBI, not only for the impact itself, but also because it is useful and fundamental to deepen process studies. Without doubt, with the help of our editorial board members and other referees, with the strong support by our past and new authors and readers, we believe that PRBI is to occupy a more and more significant scientific position as an important and very useful publishing medium in the biotechnology world.
J Boudrant
[email protected] BC Saha
[email protected] JJ Zhong
[email protected]
