EDITORIAL

Expanding antibiotics studies to include bioactive

substance science
The Journal of Antibiotics (2014) 67, 1; doi:10.1038/ja.2013.127
I
n the last few years readers would have seen many changes at The
Journal of Antibiotics. Some of these changes are the result of our
publishing partnership with Nature Publishing Group, which began in
2009, and include the introduction of an electronic manuscript
submission system, the start of online publication of the full journal
contents through the website of Nature Publishing Group and a new
cover design. Those were timely and necessary changes that enabled
the journal to continue publishing successfully in the rapidly changing
and competitive scholarly publishing environment. Besides these
infrastructural changes, there have also been many new editorial
projects and activities started, including special issues and special
contents and the addition of a new section on Taxonomy and Ecology
developed from our new editorial partnership with Society of
Actinomycetes Japan.
All of these changes have had a positive impact on how the journal
looks now. And although not all of those changes and challenges were
always visible, their results are clearly reected in the statistics, such as
the rise in Impact Factor (now 2.191), the number of submissions,
visitors to the journals website and article downloads. The increase in
submissions, accompanied by the publication of more high-quality
papers, has resulted in a far wider audience for The Journal of
Antibiotics and this has been accomplished by the great efforts and
hard work of the editorial team led by Professor Satoshi O

mura. As I
take over the role of Editor-in-Chief from him, I would like to express
my deep respect and appreciation to this great achievement. I am also
pleased to announce that Professor O

mura has agreed to remain on

the editorial board as Editor-in-Chief Emeritus.
It is certainly a great privilege and honor for me to serve as the
Editor-in-Chief for The Journal of Antibiotics and follow the long line
of distinguished former editors. I am very excited to begin working
with the managing editors and editorial board members and look
forward to bringing further success to the journal.
As Editor-in-Chief, I am committed to continue improving the
prole of the journal and the service it provides to the community of
antibiotics researchers. One action I am keen to take to achieve this is
to rene the scope of the journal and encourage submissions from
some of these new areas. It is often said that the denition of
antibiotics has changed over the years and now the term antibiotics
includes a wider diversity of anti-microbial compounds, including
synthetic anti-microbial drugs. Many researchers now regard anti-
biotics as bioactive, or bio-functional compounds, no matter whether
they are produced by microorganisms or otherwise. We are already
seeing the submission of papers about compounds that would not
have been considered as antibiotics under the traditional denition.
As research into infectious diseases becomes more active and studies
of compounds that inhibit disease-causative agents develop further, it
is certain that we will see the number of those papers increasing.
Under these circumstances, I think it is time for The Journal of
Antibiotics to ofcially expand its scope to receive submissions on a
wider range of bioactive or bio-functional substances. Doing so will, I
believe, allow the journal to increase the number of high-quality
papers we publish and become an increasingly important source of
invaluable information, driving discussions in the community of
researchers in antibiotics in its broadest sense.
I believe this proposed change in the editorial scope is a key to the
further success of The Journal of Antibiotics. We will promote this
expanded editorial scope and encourage submission of papers from
new and regular authors. If you have any questions regarding the
scope of the journal or the topic of a paper you would like to submit,
please contact the editorial ofce at any time. Also, if you as an author
or a reader have any suggestions or feedback about the journal please
contact us. We welcome any comments and will consider them in our
development plans. Suggestions and ideas for future special issues or
special editorial projects are also welcome.
There is much to be done in the New Year, but I look forward to an
exciting 2014 for The Journal of Antibiotics and hope you do too.
Kuniaki Tatsuta
Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
E-mail: tatsuta@waseda.jp
The Journal of Antibiotics (2014) 67, 1
& 2014 Japan Antibiotics Research Association All rights reserved 0021-8820/14
www.nature.com/ja