What is molecular diversity?

It is my great pleasure to serve as the new Editor-inChief of Molecular Diversity. The first volume of this Journal was published in 1995 when I was founding MDPI. At that time, the topic of molecular diversity, namely combinatorial synthesis and high-throughput synthesis and screening, was rapidly developing. The launch of Molecular Diversity, under the Editorship of Richard A. Houghten, Walter Moos, H. Mario Geysen, Mike Pavia, Stuart Kauffman and Jack Szostak, proved to be a timely one, making it the first journal on this topic. Michal Lebl has also made great contributions to Molecular Diversity through the well-known www.5z.com website. I intend to build on the excellent work of the Editors and to continue the high scientific standards which have been set. Several years ago MDPI planned to publish a title Journal of Molecular Diversity (ISSN 1424–7917) with a strong editorial team from both synthetic organic chemists and screening experts. Finally we decide to combine these two titles. Now there are at least four other journals related to combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput processes and they are all publishing good science. I believe Molecular Diversity will quickly become a leading journal in this field and will continue to hold its impressive impact factor. With the collaboration of numerous scientists, there are already a number of special issues to be published in 2003. I am confident we will keep the publication schedule from the year 2003 on and put this periodical back into a normal frequency of publication. Clearly I am interested in working hard for Molecular Diversity because of its title. What is molecular diversity? Reading a most recent issue edited by Chris L. Waller [1], I was asking myself this question yet again. Molecular diversity is about molecules and their diversity. As a trained synthetic organic chemist, I tried to define molecular diversity [2] based on my revised information theory [3–6]. I would like to ask all readers and authors to keep this question in mind and try to make some comments in your papers on molecular diversity concepts. We may all use this forum to pursue a deep understanding of the related theory and technology. I look forward to receiving your article submissions and to advancing further our knowledge and understanding of molecular diversity.