Introducing Hepatology Communications

It is my great privilege to introduce to you Hepatology Communications, the new Open Access journal of AASLD. Hepatology Communications is the newest addition to the existing AASLD journals including HEPATOLOGY, Liver Transplantation and Clinical Liver Disease. The goal of Hepatology Communications is to fill an unmet need for a journal that is different from HEPATOLOGY, with focus on translational aspects of hepatology from the bench to bedside and global implication. Hepatology Communications aims to become a desired publication destination for new discoveries in translational liver research and to be a reliable resource for all scientists and clinicians in cutting-edge liver research. This new journal will serve clinicians with resources for keeping up with advances in clinical and basic science discoveries and educate researchers on clinically relevant research questions. Hepatology Communications will bring to its readers a broad spectrum of publications including original papers, review articles, cutting edge brief reports that describe novel or controversial concepts, commentaries, letters to the Editor, and meeting reports. We will also include a Global Corner to bring attention to liver societies and our international colleagues who advance research and the care of patients with liver diseases around the world. This new journal seeks to become a platform for AASLD members, hepatologists, surgeons, radiologists, pathologists, primary care providers and specialists around the world interested in liverrelated sciences and patient care to publish their highquality basic, translational and clinical findings in an easily accessible and globally distributed Open Access journal. Hepatology Communications encourages and accepts direct submissions. In addition, it aims to offer a home for important and novel reports that have not reached priority for publication in HEPATOLOGY by offering direct transfer to authors for consideration in Hepatology Communications. Some examples are new findings in clinical trials with smaller sample sizes, basic and translational research articles with novel discovery where mechanistic studies are not yet fully explored, findings that raise controversy compared to status quo and reports in high risk high, impact areas of research or clinical practice. The concept of this new journal was conceived and supported by the AASLD Governing Board and was brought to reality with the tremendous support of the AASLD central office publications staff and the supportive and experienced team of our publisher Wiley. I am joined in shaping this journal by a fantastic team of Associate Editors: Ariel Feldstein, MD, University of California, San Diego: Kris Kowdley, MD, Swedish Medical Center; Hari Conjeevaram, MD, University of Michigan; Pranoti Mandrekar, PhD, University of Massachusetts Medical School; and Ekihiro Seki, MD, PhD, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. As the number of submissions increases, we anticipate expanding the list of Associate Editors to meet the expertise required for professional and expert peer review. We will be busy creating an Editorial Board that will advise us on further shaping the journal and assisting with a rapid and critical peer review process. We are committed to serve authors and readers with a rapid turnaround time in both the review process and online publication. As with all new Open Access journals, it will take some time to reach full recognition and indices such as an Impact Factor. We will apply for listing in PubMed as soon as the required number of published articles is reached and will make every effort to seek appropriate steps toward timely listing in Index Medicus. We look forward to receiving your high quality submissions and working with you in sharing your novel findings with the rest of the community of scientists and clinicians. The success of this journal will be largely defined by the authors who submit great science and readers who will cite the papers published in Hepatology Communications. We need your support and trust to make Hepatology Communications YOUR Address reprint requests to: Gyongyi Szabo, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Science, Director, MD/PhD Program, Vice Chair for Research, Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 364 Plantation Street LRB208, Worcester, MA 01605-4321. E-mail: [email protected]. Copyright VC 2017 The Author. Hepatology Communications published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/hep4.1024