Preface

As 2003 begins, Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening has completed its six year of publication. During the last year, several new members joined the Editorial Board replacing others whose years of service were much appreciated. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the addition of the following new members of our Editorial Board: Dr. Brian Kay, Argonne National Laboratories, Argonne, IL. Brian has already published papers in CCHTS in the area of phage display, and another paper from his groups appears in this issue. Since we receive so many manuscripts in the areas of epitope mapping, biopanning, and phage display, his expertise is most appreciated. Dr. David Goodlett, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. David is an expert in proteomics, systems biology and mass spectrometry. We expect to receive more papers in this area during the next few years, and his help will be invaluable. Dr. Gunda Georg, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. Gunda has already published on combinatorial synthesis in CCHTS and will help us with the review of manuscripts in this area. Dr. Matthew Kerby, Palo Alto, CA. Matt honed his knowledge of microfluidics and chip technology while working at Caliper Technologies. During the next few years, the number of manuscripts in this expanding field should increase. Dr. J. Michael Ramsey, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN. Mike will help us review papers on nanotechnology, microseparations, and mass spectrometry. During 2003, Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening will continue to publish review articles and original research papers in all areas of combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening. For example, articles in this and forthcoming issues will address developments in combinatorial synthesis and high throughput screening as well as their applications. For example, the manuscript by Kämpke discusses structure retrieval in chemical data bases, which is an essential component for the design of structurally diverse combinatorial libraries. The paper by Han, et al., describes an approach to accelerate the screening of phage-displayed libraries for affinity reagents, and the review by Gerner addresses the use of proteomics for the identification of diagnostic markers. Heilker et al. describe the use of time-resolved fluorescence and fluorescence polarization for high throughput screening, and Chen and Ren review the use of microchip capillary electrophoresis for high throughput DNA analysis including analysis of PCR products, DNA fragments, and DNA mutations. Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening is abstracted and indexed by the major services including BIOSIS, Chemical Abstracts, Current Contents / Life Sciences, EMBASE, BIOBASE, Science Citation Index-Expanded, Index Medicus / MEDLINE, and CAB Abstracts. As a result, articles published in Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening are highly visible to the research community. Once again, we plan to publish eight issues of CCHTS during 2004, and this frequency of publication remains the highest in the field of combinatorial chemistry or high throughput screening. The homepage of our journal and abstracts of articles may be found at the following Internet address: http: / / www.bentham.org / cchts. Information for authors may also be found at our website. Authors will be pleased to learn that we accept manuscripts in either paper or electronic format, and our readers and subscribers will continue be able to obtain Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening in printed or electronic format. The field of combinatorial chemistry continues to grow in importance as does the associated area of high throughput screening. The union of these interdependent disciplines in a single journal including both review articles and original research papers makes Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening a unique and essential scientific journal. Once again I thank the distinguished members of our Editorial Board, our Regional Editors, our able Guest Editors, the authors who contributed reviews and research papers, and of course you, our readers, for the success and continuing growth of our journal.