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The 2008 Dolph Adams Award and the State of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology

Year: 2008
Type: editorial
Abstract: This is the eleventh year that the Society of Leukocyte Biology has awarded authors cash prizes in honor of Dolph Adams. The $1000 award recognizes the most highly cited research paper and the most highly cited review article published during the previous five years in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. The prizes are awarded directly to the corresponding authors, who can decide how the funds will be distributed. Identifying and notifying the winners of this award is one of the more rewarding tasks of the Editor-in-Chief. The 2007 Dolph Adams Award winner for the most highly cited research article was Jason Marshall, as the first and corresponding author of the paper, “Identification of a novel CpG DNA class and motif that optimally stimulate B cell and plasmacytoid dendritic cell functions” (J. Leukoc. Biol. 73, 781–792, 2003), which had scored 75 citations over the previous 5 years. The 2007 award winner for the most highly-cited review article was Michael Kracht, corresponding and senior author of the review, “Multiple control of interleukin-8 gene expression” (J. Leukoc. Biol. 72, 847-855, 2002), with 192 citations. We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2008 Dolph Adams Award for the most highly cited original research paper is Patricia Fitzgerald-Bocarsly from UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey. She is the senior and corresponding author of the JLB publication, “Comparative analysis of IRF and IFN-α expression in human plasmacytoid and monocyte-derived dendritic cells,” with co-authors Alexander Izaguirre, Betsy J. Barnes, Sheela Amrute, Wen-Shuz Yeow, Nicholas Megjugorac, Jihong Dai, Di Feng, Eugene Chung, and Paula M. Pitha (J. Leukoc. Biol. 74, 1125–1138, 2003). This paper has been cited 96 times during the past five years. Dr. Fitzgerald-Bocarsly reports that she is delighted to accept the Dolph Adams award on behalf of a very talented team of investigators. The manuscript was a collaborative effort between her laboratory group and that of Paula Pitha at the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Fitzgerald-Bocarsly's laboratory has a long-term interest in plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC), which are by far the most potent producers of type 1 interferon. The Pitha laboratory has made many important discoveries focused on members of the interferon regulatory factor (IRF) family of transcription factors. Together, they hypothesized that differential expression of some of the IRF gene family members, and in particular, IRF-7, might account for the exquisite ability of the pDC to produce IFN-α in response to enveloped viruses. Ultimately, they showed that while pDC express most of the IRF family members, they express much higher levels of IRF-7 than monocyte-derived dendritic cells, which are much less efficient at producing IFN-α than pDC. Dr. Fitzgerald-Bocarsly notes that it is this observation that has led to the many citations. While the original authors have all departed to other positions, Dr. Fitzgerald-Bocarsly reports that the co-first author on this paper, Betsy Barnes, who was then a post-doctoral fellow in the Pitha lab, is now an assistant professor at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School; and a former graduate student from the Fitzgerald-Bocarsly lab, Di Feng, who did the real time PCR analysis for the JLB paper, is now a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Barnes’ laboratory. The other co-first author, Alexander Izaguirre, finished his Ph.D. studies, and, following his passion for scientific computing, is now Director of Information Technology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey. The Journal of Leukocyte Biology also recognizes and honors the five runner-up most highly-cited research papers: Paper #2 with 89 citations: “Many chemokines including CCL20/MIP-3α display antimicrobial activity” by De Yang, Qian Chen, David M. Hoover, Patricia Staley, Kenneth D. Tucker, Jacek Lubkowski, and Joost J. Oppenheim (J. Leukoc. Biol. 74, 448–455, 2003); Paper #3 with 62 citations: “Accelerated wound closure in neutrophil-depleted mice” by Julia V. Dovi, Like He, and Luisa A. Di Pietro (J. Leukoc. Biol. 73, 448–455, 2003); Paper #4 with 59 citations: “Stromal cell-drived factor-1/CXCL12 directly enhances survival/antiapoptosis of myeloid progenitor cells through CXCR4 and Gai proteins and enhances engraftment of competitive, repopulating stem cells” by Hal E. Broxmeyer, Lisa Kohli, Chang H. Kim, Younghee Lee, Charlie Mantel, Scott Cooper, Giao Hangoc, Montaser Shaheen, Xiaxin Li, and D. Wade Clapp (J. Leukoc. Biol. 73, 630–638, 2003); Paper #5 with 56 citations: “Cell surface-anchored SR-PSOX/CXC chemokine ligand 16 mediates firm adhesion of CXC chemokine receptor 6-expresing cells” by Takeshi Shimaoka, Takeshi Nakayama, Noriko Fukumoto, Noriaki Kume, Shu Takahashi, Junko Yamaguchi, Manabu Minami, Kazutaka Hayashida, Toru Kita, Jun Ohsumi, Osamu Yoshie, and Shin Yonehara (J. Leukoc. Biol. 75, 267–274, 2004); Paper #6 with 56 citations: “Essential involvement of IL-6 in the skin wound-healing process as evidenced by delayed wound healing in IL-6-deficient mice” by Zi-Qing Lin, Toshikazu Kondo, Yuko Ishida, Tatsunori Takayasu, and Naofumi Mukaida (J. Leukoc. Biol. 73, 713–721, 2003). The winner of the 2008 Dolph Adams Award for the most highly cited review article is David A. Hume from The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh. His review, “Interferon-γ: An overview of signals, mechanisms and functions,” co-authored by Kate Schroder, Paul J. Hertzog, and Timothy Ravasi (J. Leukoc. Biol. 75, 163–189, 2004) has been cited 269 times in the past five years. This is the second time that Dr. Hume has won the Dolph Adams Award. He feels that it is especially appropriate for the prize to be awarded for this review, given its focus on macrophage activation, which is a subject that was clearly an important part of Dolph Adams’ own research program. Dr. Hume also serves as a Section Editor for JLB, and as such is pleased to see our reviews as generally highly cited, providing substantial impact for the journal overall. Dr. Hume has also made note of the fact that this review was written primarily by Kate Schroder, his Ph.D. student at the University of Queensland. As such, he has decided that she will be the sole recipient of the prize money. Dr. Schroder remarks that, in writing the review, she and Dr. Hume aimed to set the recent major advances in interferon and Toll-Like Receptor signaling into the context of the older work on priming and triggering of macrophage activation, much of which was contributed by Dolph Adams and his colleagues. Indeed, both authors credit the high citation rate to the timely and topical nature of this work, particularly given the recent massive progress made toward improving our understanding of signal transduction pathways in innate immunity. Dr. Hume noted that, although the review started out attempting to address the way that interferon-gamma primes the responses to LPS, it evolved well beyond that, and turned into a comprehensive overview of interferon-gamma biology. Dr. Hume has recently taken the position as Director of The Roslin Institute in Edinburgh. Dr. Schroeder will leave the University of Queensland this December begin work under the auspices of a C. J. Martin Fellowship at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. The Journal of Leukocyte Biology also recognizes and honors the five runner-up most highly cited review articles: Review #2 with 175 citations: “How we detect microbes and respond to them: the Toll-like receptors and their transducers” by Bruce Beutler, Kaspar Hoebe, Xin Du, and Richard J. Ulevitch (J. Leukoc. Biol. 74, 479–485, 2003); Review #3 with 163 citations: “Interleukin-18” by J. Alastair Gracie, Susan E. Robertson, and Iain B. McInnes. (J. Leukoc. Biol. 73, 213–224, 2003); Review #4 with 137 citations: “Myeloperoxidase: friend and foe” by Seymour J. Klebanoff (J. Leukoc. Biol. 77, 598–625, 2005); Review #5 with 133 citations: “Endogenous ligands of toll-like receptors” by Min-Fu Tsan and Baochong Gao. (J. Leukoc. Biol. 76, 514–519, 2004); Review #6 with 122 citations: “Cathelicidins, multifunctional peptides of the innate immunity” by Margherita Zanetti (J. Leukoc. Biol. 75, 39–48, 2004). The Journal of Leukocyte Biology continued to make good progress in 2008. The impact factor has decreased somewhat from 4.572 to 4.128 over the past year, but the citation half-life was stable at 5.6. The ranking of JLB was 11th among the peer-reviewed hematology journals and has decreased from 12th to 15th in the group of reviewed immunology journals. We are somewhat disappointed with these rankings, but they reflect the ever increasing number of online journals that are appearing on the scene and competing for high quality submissions. However, despite the ever increasing number of journals, we continue to fulfill a need for authors interested in publishing work focused on the cellular and molecular biology of host defense. We continue to invite timely reviews of relevant topics and overviews from plenary and symposium speakers at relevant meetings. We find that reviews are cited about three times as often and overviews twice as often as unsolicited original manuscripts. The number of submitted papers and reviews should reach 750 this year and our acceptance rate overall remains at 37%. Consequently, the number of papers published in 2008 should increase the size of JLB to more than 3200 pages. Fortunately, the cost of this increase in journal pages is covered by page charges and JLB revenue from color charges, advertising, and copyright royalties which all should exceed the budget estimates for 2008. JLB is therefore in good economic shape. The duration of our review period has also improved to an average of 28 days on the first round and 58 days for the full review; we attribute much of this improvement to the automatic reminders sent to our reviewers. Sincerely,
DOI: 10.1189/jlb.0908999
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1998423086
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Cited by: 4
Related to: 10