Hail to the editor-in-chief: an appreciation of Victor J. Hruby, outstanding scientist-mentor-leader in peptide research.

More than a year ago, celebration of the milestone 65th birthday of University of Arizona Regents’ Professor Emeritus Victor J. Hruby, and Editor-in-Chief of this journal since 1988, marked the first stage in planning this special issue, together with the first Hruby Symposium on Chemical Biology (Tucson, October 30, 2004) and establishment of an endowment for future Hruby Symposia and a Fellowship Fund at Arizona. This trilogy of tributes credits Victor’s esteemed and prestigious scientific career in peptide research. It is with great pleasure that we co-edit this, the first of three issues in calendar year 2005 that highlight dedicated articles from but a small subset of Victor Hruby’s many friends, current and past students, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scientists, and professional colleagues, collaborators, and editorial board members (these are not mutually exclusive categories !) – a group united in its admiration for an outstanding leader in the fields of peptide chemistry, biology, and drug design. Victor is a much beloved and honored scientist with a legendary work ethic, who, in the course of an illustrious and distinguished career that is still very much flourishing, has mentored and encouraged several new generations of peptide researchers. In two later issues, we will read representative works from quite a few more of these, and we are reserving a position of honor in the year-end issue, where Victor himself will provide a valedictory coincident with his formal retirement as Editorin-Chief of the Journal of Peptide Research. Victor Hruby stands as one of the most prolific scientists of all time, with over a thousand original refereed articles and reviews. In addition to his editorial services (boards of a dozen journals), Hruby’s enthusiastic and tireless advocacy for the peptide field are exemplified by his roles as Chairman of the Eighth American Peptide Symposium in Tucson (1983), as the founding President of the American Peptide Society (1990), as a founder of Selectide Corporation (1989) and Chairman of its Scientific Advisory Board (1990–1995), and by his extensive participation in the NIH and NSF grant review processes. Much-deserved recognition of Professor Hruby’s pioneering scientific achievements and myriad professional contributions came with the pinnacle awards of two international societies, the Alan E. Pierce (now Merrifield) Award of the American Peptide Society (1993) and the Ralph F. Hirschmann Award of the American Chemical Society (2002). Victor Hruby’s modest beginnings came on Christmas Eve, 1938, in Valley City, a small community in eastern North Dakota. He received a B.S. degree magna cum laude from his home state University in 1960 with a double major in Mathematics and Chemistry. Victor has always been active in sports, and while a young college student, played on the varsity tennis team. Hruby continued on at North Dakota to obtain his M.S. degree in 1962 working on sulfur ylide chemistry with Professor A. William Johnson, and then moved to Cornell University where he earned his 1965 Ph.D. for studies on synthetic and theoretical small ring organic chemistry with Professor A.T. Blomquist. Next, Hruby’s career trajectory went through a major transition, insofar as he accepted a postdoctoral fellowship to pursue studies in the area of peptide chemistry with 1955 Nobel laureate Professor Vincent du Vigneaud of the Cornell University Medical College in New York City. During his time at the medical college, Hruby was an Instructor in Biochemistry; upon moving with Professor du Vigneaud to Cornell University in Ithaca, he became a Research Associate. Hruby’s independent academic career was launched by his appointment in 1968 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Arizona, and he achieved the rank of full Professor in 1977. In 1989, he was named Regents Professor, the highest honor the University can bestow on one of its faculty, in acknowledgement of his outstanding scholarly and research accomplishments. Other academic appointments at Arizona have been within the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Program in Neuroscience, and the Arizona Research Laboratories. Hruby has held a Senior Research fellowship, Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award, and Merit Award, all from NIH, as well as Fulbright-Hays and Guggenheim Fellowships, and received a