Introducing the new members of the JGP Editorial Advisory Board

In this issue, we welcome 11 new members to our Editorial Advisory Board. The Board serves a vital function for the Journal. They are a board of reviewers who are particularly dedicated to the Journal; we rely on them heavily. We ask their advice and recommendation about whether to send out for full review submitted manuscripts that are outside our recognized scope. They act as guest editors who handle the review process when the editor or associate editors submit a manuscript of their own work, maintaining objectivity and fairness for everyone. The publishing landscape is changing rapidly. We face challenging issues such as open access, multimedia content, and the proliferation of for-profit journals. The Editorial Advisory Board guides the Journal with integrity, vision, and generosity. JGP is a journal run by scientists for scientists. With no stockholders, we answer only to our authors, reviewers, and readers. The Board is a sampling of these groups that is dedicated to the Journal and to our mission of service. Members of the Editorial Advisory Board are the best ambassadors for the Journal one could hope for. In addition to submitting their own work to JGP, they spread our message of fair, fast, constructive, and consistent review, recruiting their colleagues to submit to JGP and increasing the diversity of the work we publish. Each year we welcome a handful of new members who are chosen for their dedication to the Journal, excellent judgment, and their high scientific values. In addition, our choice of new members may help us to cover new or expanding research areas within our community. In summary, members of our Editorial Advisory Board are the real heroes of JGP. To our newest members, we are proud to have you among us. To our long-serving members, thank you for everything you do for our community. YOU are JGP. Robert S. Balaban Bob received his BS degrees in chemistry and biology at the University Miami in 1975. After completing the membrane transport course at the Duke Marine Labs, he became fascinated with the membrane transport processes and entered graduate school in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Duke, where he initiated his studies on the energetic support of ion transport in epithelia with Lazaro Mandel. After completing his thesis in 1979, Bob was awarded a NATO Fellowship to the University of Oxford to work with George Radda on the newly reported NMR spectroscopy techniques to noninvasively monitor tissue metabolites, in vivo, to complement his optical approaches. He secured his staff position at the Laboratory of Kidney and Electrolyte Metabolism at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institutes (NHLBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with Jack Orloff and Moe Burg before taking the Oxford position. Upon returning to the States, Bob set up in vivo NMR programs at the NIH. Bob was elected the president of the two major international societies in MRI, the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance. Recently, Bob’s primary interests have returned to the study of the regulation of the mitochondrial function. He is taking a systems biology approach to the problem, including classical biochemical approaches, multi-parameter optical spectroscopy, as well as numerous proteomic approaches. A major effort is in intra-vital high resolution multi-photon excitation microscopy to monitor mitochondrial function complementing the lower resolution NMR studies work. In parallel to his laboratory activities, Bob became the Scientific Director of the Basic Laboratory programs at the NIH in 1999. The position was expanded to include oversight of the clinical programs in 2005. In this role, he oversees and evaluates scientific programs ranging from basic structural biology and cell biology to clinical research. Photo courtesy of