Peter Gölitz

Black Sheep, Points of Light, and Angewandte Chemie

From deception to plagiarism, the range of unethical behavior in the publishing practices of scientists is broad. However, scientists should not all be tarred with the same brush. This theme is at the heart of the Editorial that also illuminates some happier events, such as the nomination of new members of the Editorial and International Advisory Boards.

The impact factor of Angewandte Chemie

What does the Impact Factor tell us? This question is addressed by Peter Glitz in his Editorial, particularly in light of the surprising drop in the 2013 Impact Factor of Angewandte Chemie. An explanation is sought and found. Most importantly the influence of the individual variables that determine the Impact Factor needs to be understood.

Preprints, Impact Factors, and Unethical Behavior, but also Lots of Good News

Preprints as well? There is already the Accepted Article (published directly after refereeing and author revision), the Early-View/ASAP-Version (after refereeing, editing and proofing), and the final Version of Record. The problems with preprints are discussed in this Editorial along with the undeclared resubmission of previously rejected manuscripts: publication times, color costs, and Angewandte Symposia are further topics.

150 Years of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), New Board Members, and More

Should manuscripts by young authors with low H indices be directly rejected? Such crazy ideas can be extrapolated from the notion that lots of citations are a guarantee for high quality. Such flawed developments in scientific publishing are one theme of the Editorial by the Editor in Chief of Angewandte Chemie, as are far more positive aspects, such as the activities of the German Chemical Society (GDCh; Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker) in it anniversary year, 2017.

The GDCh and Angewandte Chemie Celebrate the 150th Anniversary and a Change of Editor-in-Chief

On September 10, 2017, the GDCh celebrated the anniversary of the founding of one of its predecessor organizations, and on September 11, to mark this anniversary an Angewandte Fest Symposium was held at the Freie Universität Berlin. On October 1, Neville Compton (middle) took over as Editor-in-Chief of Angewandte Chemie, a position held by Peter Gölitz (left) for 35 years. The Editor-in-Chief change was commented on by Alois Fürstner, chairman of the journals Editorial Board.

Turning the Digital Page at ChemBioChem

Chemical biology has been in the spotlight for numerous reasons lately. ChemBioChem has had a productive year at the forefront of these advances and is looking forward to many changes in 2014. Advances in digital publishing promise to increase the visibility and functionality of ChemBioChem for our worldwide readership.

Let the Catalysis Continue

The decision to include nanocatalysis as a new term for the ChemCatChem family of topics was brought by the large amount of submissions described as nanocatalysis and was crystallised when we published our Special Issue on said topic in October. Indeed, we look forward to receiving more and more papers on this topic in the coming years. We had two highly successful Special Issues in 2012, one on Organocatalysis (Issue 7, Figure 1), which was guest edited by Pier Cozzi and Yujiro Hayashi, and one on the Synthesis of Discover this journal online at:

Editorial: Anything on the Scope? Chemical Biology and More

Chemical biology continues to be at the heart of scientific achievement. In 2012, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for their work on Gprotein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). This work, and the efforts of chemists, structural biologists and others that followed, has ultimately transformed, even saved, many lives the world over (see our special issue on GPCRs (Issue 10, 2002), which features a Full Paper from Kobilka—ChemBioChem 2002, 3, 993–998). Modern science is a collaboration of the disciplines, and studies at the interface of biology and chemistry—the very heart of ChemBioChem’s scope—have always made important contributions to mankind’s understanding of nature, and have again been deservedly recognized.

ChemCatChem: For a Catalytic Future

The first full year of ChemCatChem has passed and proved to be something of a momentous year in the field of catalysis, with the long-awaited awarding of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi, and Akira Suzuki for their groundbreaking work on palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis (Figure 1). Owing to the tremendous impact on organic chemistry of the reactions carrying the names of the new Nobel Laureates, this award is well deserved (not to mention long overdue). This is perhaps also the moment to remember John Stille (1930–1989), as the reaction that carries his name is of similar nature and importance. John Stille died before his time in an air crash, but not before completing fascinating work on carbon–carbon bond coupling.

ChemBioChem Has Come of Age

Chemical biology has been on the rise ever since it started to become a field in its own right out of the merging of chemistry and biology in the early nineties. More recently, we have seen that increasing activity in chemical-biological research has been dedicated to, for example, epigenetics, stem cells and super-resolution imaging and the more traditional areas covered by the practitioners of the art are busier than ever. Biologists are increasingly discovering that chemistry can help them find solutions to the convoluted, complex problems that they face in areas such as signal transduction. Likewise, chemists are harnessing the power of biology and, at the same time, making advances in topics such as biosynthesis, and directed evolution. The interdisciplinary solutions provided by chemical biology complement the other, also relatively young, fields of bioinformatics and systems biology.