Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The year 2025 marks a significant milestone in the history of The Company of Biologists. We at the Company have enjoyed an extraordinary year of celebration and we are now taking the opportunity to look back on our activities, including our Biologists @ 100 conference in March and the content we've published throughout the year to celebrate both our publishing and charitable activities. At the same time, we share a new strategic plan for The Company of Biologists with a focus on supporting biologists and inspiring biology for the next 100 years.A highlight of our anniversary year was the Biologists @ 100 conference, which took place in Liverpool from 24–27 March. The meeting brought together researchers from across the disciplines represented by our five journals – Development, Journal of Cell Science (JCS), Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open. It was held in partnership with the three societies we help support through our charitable funding − the British Society for Cell Biology (BSCB), British Society for Developmental Biology (BSDB) and the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB). Altogether, we welcomed 585 attendees from 27 countries (and six continents), and featured research from 76 speakers and 286 posters. In cooperation with our community sites, we invited researchers to submit their best and most beautiful microscopy images to the Node–FocalPlane image competition. Biologists @ 100 attendees voted for their favourite images − the winners can be found featured on our microscopy community site FocalPlane (https://focalplane.biologists.com/2025/03/27/announcing-the-winners-of-the-node-focalplane-image-competition/) (Fig. 1).The conference programme offered a unique opportunity to attend a diverse range of sessions. Topics were chosen to pique people's curiosity to learn something new from a talk they might not normally have chosen to attend. In our plenary sessions − on climate change and biodiversity loss, health and disease, and emerging technologies − we wanted to tie together this curiosity-driven approach by setting our conference themes within a broader context, focusing on key challenges and opportunities facing biologists, and the world, today (https://www.biologists.com/100-years/conference/videos). We thank our scientific organisers, Sarah Bray, Steve Clapcote, Craig Franklin, Steve Royle, Holly Shiels and Jim Smith, for their contributions to this interdisciplinary scientific programme.In March, in anticipation of their talks, JCS interviewed Biologists @ 100 plenary speakers Manu Prakash (doi:10.1242/jcs.263898) and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz (doi:10.1242/jcs.263937). Manu is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University and creator of the Foldscope, which has been lauded for reducing access barriers to microscopy and democratizing ‘curiosity-driven’ science worldwide. Jennifer is a Senior Group Leader and Head of 4D Cellular Physiology at Howard Hughes Medical Institute's (HHMI) Janelia Research Campus and a JCS Editor with world-renowned expertise in live-cell imaging. Manu's and Jennifer's plenary lectures on emerging technologies, from the most advanced microscopes for bioimaging in the world to the widely accessible, low-cost and portable Foldscope, shared remarkable insights on the intricate dance of organelles during protein translation and on the diversity and complexity of planktonic life found under ocean ice in a changing climate.The event itself was a showcase for sustainable conferencing, with carbon-conscious choices embedded in everything from venue selection and delegate travel to plant-based catering and a sustainability zone. We took the opportunity to preview our Event carbon calculator (https://www.biologists.com/sustainability-hub/event-carbon-calculator/), which helps meeting organisers reduce the carbon footprint of their events. We were also delighted to be joined by the Woodland Trust, who support our biodiversity initiative, The Forest of Biologists (Moulton and Freeman, 2023). Finally, we hosted author focus groups at the conference, asking the community to help us shape our journals for the future by sharing their publishing priorities, highlights and concerns.Our centenary provided a perfect opportunity to review the 100-year history of the Company and the impact of our charitable activities to consider ways in which we can better support the community and the Company's mission in the future.Over the past year, JCS has published articles as part of our anniversary subject collection (Fig. 2) focusing on the journal's history and relationship with the greater cell biology community. At the beginning of the year, some of our Directors overviewed the journey of The Company of Biologists from its founding in 1925 to the present (Bray et al., 2025). In February, we delved into the 172-year history of JCS (Adhikari and Grewal, 2025), which was launched in 1853 as the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Sciences (QJMS), acquired by George Parker Bidder III and The Company of Biologists in 1946, and rebranded as JCS in 1966, when it formally ‘evolved’ into its current focus on fundamental cellular mechanisms. We also explored the historical close ties between JCS and the BSCB, established in 1965 (Adhikari, 2025) and highlighted the careers of ten remarkable scientists who published first-author papers in QJMS or JCS over the past century (Glazier, 2025). To close out the year, our current Editor-in-Chief Michael Way and previous Editor-in-Chief Fiona Watt reflected on their tenures at the helm of JCS (Way and Watt, 2025).We also invited members of our community to reflect on the history (and future) of cell science and on life as a cell biologist in the form of interviews, Essays and Perspectives. In a new follow-up to JCS's all-time most-read article, an Essay on ‘The importance of stupidity in scientific research’ (Schwartz, 2008), Martin Schwartz discussed his answer to the question ‘Why would anyone want to be a scientist?’ (Schwartz, 2025). Long-time JCS Editor Arnoud Sonnenberg and Editorial Advisory Board member Reinhard Fässler shared their personal perspectives on the history of research on integrins (Fässler and Sonnenberg, 2025). JCS Editorial Advisory Board members Gautam Dey, Lillian Fritz-Laylin and Snezhana Oliferenko with colleague Eelco Tromer, a co-organizer of The Company of Biologists Workshop on ‘Genotype to Phenotype: Bridging Comparative Genomics and Cell Biology’, explored the interdisciplinary field of evolutionary cell biology and the challenges faced by this burgeoning research community (Dey et al., 2025). Finally, we interviewed the elusive Mole, the anonymous author of JCS's long-running Sticky Wicket series (doi:10.1242/jcs.264605). JCS would not be the unique journal it is today without the support and contributions of our extraordinary community. Throughout the year, we spotlighted 100 biologists with an extraordinary link to the Company who have made an important contribution to biology through our #100biologists social media campaign (Box 1). ‘Extraordinary’ has many faces and it was difficult to restrict ourselves to 100 people, but this was a wonderful way to recognise a wide range of biologists from different career stages, locations and periods in history. Look out for The Company of Biologists' founder, the marine biologist George Parker Bidder III, in the collection, who at one point held the world record for the oldest message in a bottle (stemming from his work on ocean currents). To honour him we set up our own ‘message in a bottle’ project. We've been gathering stories from you, our community, on how The Company of Biologists has supported you over time and how our support has positively impacted your careers. Below, we're highlighting a selection of stories and we have been delighted to hear from those who've received a Travelling Fellowship or other charitable support, those who've attended one of our scientific meetings, published a key paper in one of our journals or contributed to one of our community sites, and of course those who've worked with us as Directors, Editors or on one of our other projects. Box 1. The ‘100 extraordinary biologists’ we have featured during 2025Michael AbercrombieSaanjbati AdhikariAymen al-Rawi*Rohini BalakrishnanDaniel Ríos BarreraRenata Basto*Kênia Cardoso BícegoGeorge Parker Bidder IIIAnahí Binagui-CasasBob BoutilierAndrea BrandSarah BrayJames BriscoeKatherine BrownCarol BuckingClotilde CadartPaul Conduit*Kim CooperMariana De Niz*Gautam Dey*Michael DickinsonJeroen DobbelaereKatherine DuncanSadaf FarooqiTony FarrellHonor Fell*Jane FrancisCraig FranklinAndrea FullerJoachim GoedhartDaniel GorelickJohn GurdonAmanda HaageCathy Jackson*Helena JamborMonica JusticeSteve KellyAugust KroghTamina LebekChristophe Leterrier*Ottoline LeyserJames LiaoGrace LimJennifer Lippincott-Schwartz*Sally LowellEmily Lucas*Simon MaddrellTshepiso MajelantleElaine MardisPaul MartinPeter Medawar*Pleasantine Mill*Mole*Claire MoultonAndrea MurilloJanni Nüsslein-VolhardGodwin Pius OhemuGuangshuo Ou*Hoover Pantoja-SanchezSheila PatekAndrea PaterliniLiz PattonMark Peifer*Norbert PerrimonDaisy Pineda-SuazoHans-Otto PörtnerManu PrakashReinier ProséeJordan RaffLiz RobertsonNadia RosenthalJanet RossantOwen SansomMartin Schwartz*Holly ShielsVivian SiegelZolelwa SifumbaAustin SmithJim SmithArnoud Sonnenberg*John SpeakmanDavid Stephens*Kate StoreyCharles SwantonStephen TaitJohn TreherneSylvie UrbéTeresa ValencakK. VijayraghavanTobias WangJennifer Waters*Fiona Watt*Michael Way*Vincent WigglesworthCaroline WilliamsChris WoodChris WylieMartha S. C. XelhuantziHelen Zenner*Meng ZhuNames with asterisks indicate biologists with specific links to JCS.Maximiliano Guitierrez (Francis Crick Institute, UK) received a JCS Travelling Fellowship in 2003, during his PhD, to travel to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany and receive training in electron microscopy with Gareth Griffiths, to whose lab he returned in 2006 as a postdoc. Maximiliano says that his time at EMBL and the people he met there were instrumental for his career: “Since then, my passion for electron microscopy has profoundly influenced the research in my lab.” He is currently a Principal Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London, where his group studies strategies that Myobacterium tuberculosis bacteria use to evade host cell defence mechanisms, with the goal of developing improved treatments for tuberculosis.Sonal Jaiswal (iFIT Cluster of Excellence, University Hospital Tübingen, Germany) shared how JCS's First Person interview series gave her a platform to write about her non-traditional career aspirations to pursue leadership roles in academia outside of the lab, giving visibility to an underrepresented career narrative in academia (doi:10.1242/jcs.261746). Sonal says that the validity of her goals being recognised by a respected scientific publisher gave her both confidence and a sense of belonging within the broader scientific community. She is now Managing Director of the iFIT Cluster of Excellence at University Hospital Tübingen, where she helps to shape and strategize translational cancer research. “What makes The Company of Biologists so special is its commitment to community, not just as a publisher, but as a platform that empowers scientists at all stages and from all walks of life. I've always admired the dynamic nature of the journals, the evolving opportunities they offer, and their willingness to spotlight real, human stories behind the science”, says Sonal.Chris MacDonald (University of York, UK) says that The Company of Biologists has been central to his entire research career. His first paper as a PhD student was published in JCS (Struthers et al., 2009), as was his first paper as an independent PI (Laidlaw et al., 2021), which was published Open Access through The Company of Biologists' Read & Publish initiative. The Company's Chief Executive Officer Claire Moulton interviewed Chris back in 2021 on his perspective of the benefits of such agreements for early-career researchers (https://www.biologists.com/library-hub/read-publish/read-publish-open-access-videos/chris-macdonald/). The Company also sponsored the first meeting he ever organised [the 39th Small Meeting on Yeast Transport and Energetics (SMYTE) in York, 2024]. Chris also shared how JCS's First Person interviews raised the profile of multiple members of his lab by helping to disseminate their research and facilitating their career moves. “I genuinely value The Company of Biologists as an outlet for our research and will be focussing future research to [JCS] after three brilliant experiences as a PI to date”, he adds.Mariana de Niz (Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, USA) is a regular contributor to our microscopy community site, FocalPlane, through two blog series: Latin American Microscopists (https://focalplane.biologists.com/category/latin-american-microscopists/) and Towards Global Access (https://focalplane.biologists.com/category/towards-global-access/). Mariana has also contributed to The Company's preprint highlighting platform preLights and co-organized the 2025 Global South Workshop on Democratising Microscopy in Latin America: Imaging Across Scales and Regions in Ecuador. She says that The Company of Biologists has also benefited her career through highlighting her work as an early-career researcher and through a Scientific Meeting Grant to support the Latin American Bioimaging (LABI) LABIxSuperres meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 2024. Mariana notes that “The Company of Biologists has raised the standard in many respects including commitment to the scientific community, open science and fostering networks. Its philosophy has been key to my career. My time as a preLighter allowed me to connect to more than 100 scientists. My time as a contributor to FocalPlane has allowed me to connect back with my own community in Latin America. I have also been able to connect to like-minded people through various programmes led by The Company of Biologists.”Making 2025 a year full of activity and celebration has relied on enthusiasm and effort from every member of our staff here at The Company of Biologists, including all our departments from Charity to Production, from Sales and Marketing to Accounts, and from Events to Editorial. We sincerely thank everyone for their contributions. You can learn more about some of our staff in our recent story (https://www.biologists.com/stories/the-people-behind-the-company/). We also thank our colleagues who have collaborated across our five journals and three community sites to produce our anniversary content: Saanjbati Adhikari, Katherine Brown, Alejandra Clark, Amelia Glazier, Seema Grewal, Rachel Hacket, Michaela Handel, Kirsty Hooper, Kathryn Knight, Dina Mikimoto, Andrea Murillo and Helen Zenner. In addition, we thank the 100-anniversary project team, Jitske de Vries, Jane Elsom, Alex Eve, Claire Moulton and Katie Ward, who have overseen this anniversary year and all the ventures therein.The anniversary year also saw internal transformation as the Company turned its thinking towards the future. Claire Moulton was appointed as the Company's first Chief Executive Officer, with Katie Ward being appointed as Chief Financial Officer, reflecting a commitment from the Board of Directors to harness our in-house publishing expertise and promote collaborative thinking across the organisation (Fig. 3).Our new strategic plan (2025–2028) focuses on four key areas: (1) Work together across all areas of the organisation to support the biological community, including building on our relationships with societies and other philanthropic organisations. (2) Strengthen our journals as highly respected publications that support the advancement of biological research while preserving the unique qualities of our journals, providing a great author experience and building trust and transparency in our publishing practices. (3) Develop a sustainable pathway to support the Company's activities for another 100 years, covering both financial sustainability and environmental sustainability. (4) Build on our reputation for community-focused innovation – 2025 featured Biology Open's Fast & Fair peer review initiative and the sustainability team's Event Carbon Calculator.As the centenary year draws to a close, The Company of Biologists has had a lot to celebrate. The next 100 years give us even more to think about as we continue our commitment to supporting biologists and inspiring biology.We would like to thank Alex Eve for support writing this article.
Source: Journal of Cell Science
DOI: 10.1242/jcs.264606
Authors: O. Claire Moulton, Amelia Glazier, Katie Ward
Institution: Company of Biologists
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4417499146