Biophysical Reviews enters the online world, provides a focus on biophysics in Asia

Abstract

This Special Issue of Biophysical Reviews is dedicated to the joint meeting of the Asian Biophysics Association (ABA) and the Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB), held in Melbourne in December of 2018. The ABA is an interesting beast. It is a loose confederacy of national societies located in the greater Asia region. Presently, the ABA is composed of the Biophysical Societies of China, India, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Australia. Due to growing investment in basic science throughout the Asia region, it could be argued that the ABA is one of the most dynamic focal points for the presentation and discussion of biophysics in the world today. This Special Issue was curated and edited by six Guest Editors, Prof. Kuniaki Nagayama, Prof. Hiroyuki Noji, Prof. Raymond Norton, Prof. Kyeong Kyu Kim, Assoc. Prof. Till Böcking, and Dr. Andrew Battle. I would like to congratulate these Editors for their remarkable efforts in producing this very interesting snapshot of the ABA/ASB event. By combining commentaries from the individual societies, together with series of review articles on topics presented at the meeting, they have managed to provide a flavor of the meeting, as well as communicating very well the efforts of the individual national biophysical societies in their attempts to build local collaboration networks amongst their Asian neighbors. The following Editorial (Battle et al. 2019) provides greater details on the particulars of this issue and I recommend it to you. Starting this year, Biophysical Reviews has taken the plunge and entered the social media world. From a personal perspective, I am not entirely certain whether social media is necessarily a good thing for science (at least not in the sense of science being a pastime based on introspective quiet contemplation). However, undoubtedly, the nature of communication in science, and indeed the society in which science is conducted, is rapidly changing. Whether this is something to be embraced, or something to be lamented, we shall see. As a journal, we have decided to adopt the former, more hopeful perspective, and in this spirit have launched a Biophysical Reviews TwitterTM account and a Biophysical Reviews YouTubeTM channel to further promote the work published within, and the activities carried out by, the journal. The online address of these two social media accounts can be found here. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzG_ 5MWmnrB2UBibtxs2DuA Twitter: @BiophysicalRev1 As they say, if you like the contents please click the subscribe link and smash like below. On a different matter, Biophysical Reviewswould like to note some changes to the Editorial Board. Due to his becoming the new Chief Editor Elect of the Japanese Biophysical Society’s flagship publication, BBiophysics and Physicobiology,^ Prof. Haruki Nakamura has stood down from his Executive Editor role and now rejoins the Editorial Board as an appointed Member. Three new Executive Editors, Prof. Rosangela Itri (Brazil), Assoc. Prof. Joshua Ho (Hong Kong), and Prof. Kuniaki Nagayama (Japan), have agreed to join with the existing Executive Editors, Prof. Wilma Olson (USA) and Prof. N.R. Jagannathan (India), to help continue steering the journal’s course in the right direction.Biophysical Reviews is lucky to have these new Editors and will undoubtedly benefit from their input. Furthermore, six new Members have been appointed to the Editorial Board—these new Members are Prof. Jeremy Tame (Japan), Prof. Karthe Ponnuraj (India), Prof. Junichi Higo (Japan), Assoc. Prof. Keith Shearwin (Australia), Assoc. Prof. Akira Kinjo (Brunei), and Dr. James McNamara (USA). On This editorial for volume 11, issue 3 of Biophysical Reviews provides a brief summary of contents, along with a discussion of some matters affecting, and of interest to, readers of the journal