Introducing our Associates

We are writing to you with one calendar year under our belt as the editors of Neurogastroenterology and Motility, and we are pleased to report the journal is strong, and it is an increasingly popular target journal for investigators in our field. In 2012, we handled 439 manuscripts, which is a robust 17% increase over the 2011 submissions, and represents a 50% increase in manuscript submissions in just 5 years. The impact factor continues to trend upward. It is currently 3.414, up from 3.349 the year before. This is noteworthy development because the number of articles published in the journal was increased in 2010 at the risk of a negative effect on the impact factor. To maintain the quality of the publications while continuing to publish our articles with a short lag time, the rejection rate has increased from roughly 41% to 47% of the submitted manuscripts. The average time between submission and publication is 8 weeks with accelerated time lines for clinical trials. The successful operation of our journal is highly dependent on the magnanimous services of our peer reviewers. In 2012, 364 members of the Neurogastroenterology and Motility community donated their time and expertise by participating in the rigorous review process and suggesting areas of improvement for the authors to strengthen and revise the manuscript that we accepted for publication. We thank all of you who have provided these services, and we would like to call special attention to the following 12 individuals who reviewed the most manuscripts, and did so with an average turnaround time of 11.4 days: Pieter Janssen, Pere Clave, Mark Fox, Sabine Roman, Michael Camilleri, Albert Bredenoord, Shin Fukudo, Purna Kashyap, David Linden, Bridget Southwell, Yvette Taché, and Heather Young. In an effort to further increase the service we provide to authors and deal with the increased workload that has accompanied the increase in manuscript submissions, we have added two Associate Editor positions to the editorial board structure. We are pleased to announce that Drs. Sylvie Bradesi (Basic Science) and Arjan J. Bredenoord (Clinical) are the two new Associate Editors. Dr Bradesi received her PhD in Biological Sciences at the Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France and pursued her postdoctoral training in Gastroenterology and Physiopathology of Visceral Pain under the mentorship of Dr Emeran Mayer at the Center for Neurovisceral Sciences and Women's Health at UCLA, Los Angeles. She is now at the Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA, School of Medicine, Division of Digestive Diseases. She has developed a research program with a strong interest in the development of animal models for functional bowel disorders, investigating the physiopathology of visceral hyperalgesia and the functional role of CNS glial cells in pain facilitation and increased stress responsiveness. Albert J. (Arjan) Bredenoord graduated in Medicine at Antwerp University, Medicine at Antwerp University, Belgium where he performed translational studies of gastrointestinal motility. He subsequently worked on several clinical research GI motility projects at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA, and at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, for which he earned a PhD. His clinical training was performed in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands, and at the Royal London Hospital in London, UK. He currently works at the Amsterdam Medical Center where he is dedicated to patients care, scientific research, and education. His primary expertise is on gastrointestinal motility of the esophagus. Another important announcement is that the journal is going entirely electronic as of January, 2014. Reprints of individual articles will be available but hard copies will no longer be published. The percentage of authors who ask for their article to be published in the hard copy version of the journal has decreased significantly in the past 2 years making the article version no longer a true representation of what Neurogastrenterology and Motility has to offer. In preparation for this transition, we encourage anyone who has not done so to register to receive the electronic Table of Contents via email. To do so, you will have to register for the Wiley Online Library and indicate that you wish to receive the Table of Contents for our journal. You can do this from the journal website. In conclusion, we thank you for your societies' support of the journal and look forward to another banner year for the journal.