Letter from the Editor

One year has elapsed since I took over as the editor of Pharmacology & Toxicology. Pharmacology & Toxicology is an International Journal founded in 1945 in Copenhagen, Denmark. As my predecessor Professor Jens Sølver Schou wrote last year in his farewell greeting, I am only the third editor in the history of the Journal! I would like to use this opportunity to thank Professor Schou for almost 40 years of dedication to Pharmacology & Toxicology. I also thank him for the smooth transition, allowing me taking over the editorship gradually during 2003 and I am pleased that Professor Schou will continue as member of the Executive Committee. Allow me to introduce myself. I was born in Copenhagen in 1954 and became a medical doctor in 1981 from the University of Copenhagen. I was an intern in surgery, general internal medicine, anaesthesiology and psychiatry until 1985 before I decided to become a scientist. I was a research fellow (1985–1986), assistant professor (1986–1988) and associate professor (1988–1995) in clinical pharmacology before I became a full professor in human pharmacology in 1995 with special emphasis on pharmacogenetics. The Research Unit of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Southern Denmark (formerly Odense University) has been my base during my entire academic career, but I have been a post-doctoral fellow in Basel (1988–1989) and a visiting professor in Paris (2002–2003). I have served as a member of the executive committee of the European Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics since 1995 and I am honorary president of this association. In addition, I am the medical secretary of the clinical section of IUPHAR. You can find more details at: http://www.isihighlycited.com/. With a clear intention to respect history and traditions, I have already, during my first year, introduced a number of changes. The most remarkable, of course, being the change of the name of the Journal to Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology (BCPT) from January 2004. To the best of my knowledge it is the only international journal covering both pharmacology and toxicology in depth and breadth i.e. from molecule to society, bridging the gap from molecule to cells to animals and to man. The change of name is a signal that, in the future, I want to strengthen the clinical aspects of both pharmacology and toxicology in the journal. I am a strong believer that both disciplines are essential to clinical medicine, and that their long-term survival will depend heavily on them being available and visible in the clinical sector. It is by no means a signal that basic pharmacology and toxicology will become less important. On the contrary, I hope that, in the future, it will become even more attractive for basic scientists to publish their work in Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology. There is another reason why the name of the Journal has been changed, and as you can see in the “Letter to the Editor” written by the president of IUPHAR, Professor Paul M. Vanhoutte, which follows this contribution, IUPHAR will maintain the acronym but will also change its name from International Union of Pharmacology to International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology. I should like to add here, that the IUPHAR Congress in 2010 in Copenhagen will be the first common world congress for both basic and clinical pharmacology. The Danish Society of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and the Danish Society of Clinical Pharmacology are the hosts and I am the president of the congress. Naturally Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology will act as the principal mouthpiece of the congress both before and during the event. The Aims and Scope of the Journal has been revised as a reflection of the wish to strengthen clinical pharmacology and toxicology in the journal in the future. In order to avoid Conflicts of interests and to declare all Sources of funding the Journal will comply with the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals”. Thus all authors submitting a manuscript to the Journal, in the future, must disclose any conflict of interest. We have decided to prepare the introduction of on-line submission, peer review and tracking of full-text manuscripts during 2004. We have chosen the system Manuscript Central that many of our readers are familiar with. We do need time to get used to the system so please bear with us if we need a time before we can serve authors and reviewers. As always the Editorial Advisers and all of our reviewers listed in this issue have made an enormous effort in securing the highest possible scientific standard of the papers published in Pharmacology & Toxicology, and we are very grateful for that. Five scientists have agreed to become new Editorial Advisers: Nancy Rusch (USA), Denis M. Grant (Canada), Michel Félétou (France) and Heyo Kroemer and Jürgen Brockmöller (both Germany). I welcome them and look forward to collaborating with them. The same applies also to the two new members of the Executive Committee, Dr. Ian Ahnfelt-Rønne and Professor Ove Schaffalitzky de Muckadell. I would like to thank the rest of the Executive Committee but, in particular, the new chairman Professor Ove Svendsen and also the Editorial Manager Grete Hoppe Mouret for having been so very kind and helpful to the new editor. The former chairman of the Executive Committee Claus Bræstrup, who served the Journal for almost 15 years became the CEO of H. Lundbeck A/S 1st of November this year and hence he has decided to leave the journal. On behalf of the Journal I wish to thank him wholeheartedly for all he has done. I also want to thank my three able and dedicated MiniReview Editors, Erik Dybing, Rolf Håkanson and Olavi Pelkonen. Together we have received agreement from approximately 20 internationally renowned scientists to write MiniReviews on a broad range of topics relevant to the Journal! Finally I want to thank all the talented and dedicated scientists who have entrusted us with the publication of their exiting work. Without these contributions there would not be a Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology. In 2004 and the years to come we shall continue to do our best in dealing with our authors politely and professionally on a friendly basis and we hope to be able to attract even more and better manuscripts than before. I wish you all a very happy New Year!

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