Interviews with John Jones and Luis Moroder
January 15, 2008 EPSAfter nearly 10 years at the helm of Journal of Peptide Science, John Jones has decided to step down as Editor-in-Chief.
This feature contains two shortened versions of interviews with John Jones and with the new Editor-in-Chief, Luis Moroder.The full interviews will be published in the next EPS Newsletter in Spring 2008.
It was an honour to have been asked by the European Peptide Society to take the journal on. And although it was very much a going concern, it was also a challenge to build on Conrad Schneider’s foundations. The task gave me new contacts which were valuable, and the occasional advance knowledge of some important development was a privilege... Were there any irritations? Small ones, but yes. It has astonished me several times to find how lazy authors can be, simply not reading the Instructions to Authors; reference-listing not in accordance with our style is a common failing. And authors have occasionally been tiresome over silly abbreviations which depart from the guidelines I have tried to get everyone to adopt. How has peptide science changed over this decade and has the journal reflected these changes? I do not think it is possible to give a simple answer here. The field is very diverse and has been advancing in all directions. Things have been achieved which a previous generation would have reckoned impossible - the synthesis of Enfuvirtide by the ton, for example. I think, hope fervently at any rate, that the journal has reflected the field... What are your wishes for your successor, Luis Moroder? Of course I wish him the very best, and would like to add here that I take it as a massive compliment that someone of his distinction is willing to take the journal on after me.
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I began my peptide chemistry career in 1964 at the University of Padua with Ernesto Scoffone and his associates. My project was entitled “Synthesis of the S-peptide and related analogues for structure-function studies of RNase S”. During a subsequent postdoc with Klaus Hofmann in Pittsburgh, I experienced a very tough, but highly productive and stimulating training in the most advanced methodology of peptide synthesis. In 1975 I joined the Department of Peptide Chemistry at the Max-Planck-Institute in Martinsried, headed by Erich Wünsch, shifting research interest to the synthesis of neuropeptide hormones. After Erich Wünsch’s retirement, I initiated intensive collaborations between my Research Group of Bioorganic Chemistry and other departments of the Institute and various laboratories in Europe and abroad... You have been a member of the EPS for more than 30 years. How important was this membership to you? I had the occasion to attend in 1971 for the first time the European Peptide Symposium in What are your plans for the future development of the Journal of Peptide Science? Following John’s practice, in the first instance my intention would be to invite prominent scientists for a series of review articles, which cover the most promising present and future research areas for peptide chemistry such as Structural Biology, Chemical Biology and Synthetic Biology, but even Biophysics. By this strategy, successfully promoted by John, submission of following-up experimental papers of high quality may be expected. With this strong orientation toward more basic research, competition with other journals in peptide research that are addressing more specifically drug design and development may be minimized. Where do you see the important developments in peptide science in the future? Even with the unexpectedly fast progress achieved over the last few decades in the methodology of synthesis of peptides and even of proteins, in the chromatographic techniques for their isolation and in the analytics of synthetic and semisynthetic polypeptides, advances are still needed in many areas. Moreover, peptides have become unrivalled tools in most of the biochemical, biophysical, biological and immunological research… |
