Editorial from Editor-in-Chief

Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening begins its eighth year of publication with this issue. Given this perspective, it is interesting how rapidly this field is changing and yet still remains relevant to the discovery and development of new drugs, catalysts, and other materials. For example, in just eight years we have witnessed a trend away from the practice of assembling enormous random libraries of compounds for drug discovery. Instead, libraries of “drug like” compounds are being assembled for screening that exclude compounds with undesirable physical properties such as excessively high molecular weight that prevents absorption following oral administration or poor solubility that impedes formulation and screening. In combinatorial chemistry, the new approach of diversity oriented synthesis is being used to generate a greater variety of compounds for screening than ever before so that the synthetic process may become more efficient at generating chemical diversity. The need for more diversity in screening programs has also renewed interests in natural products as sources of diverse chemical structures. Despite the demand for greater diversity in early screening programs, the synthesis of structurally related compounds from a particular scaffold remains popular after a lead compound has been identified that may serve as a model. Finally, in an effort to enhance the productivity of high throughput screening programs for drug discovery, drug development assays are being incorporated earlier than ever in the discovery phase in a form of high throughput screening that is being called high content screening. During 2005 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. Regular issues will be alternated with special issues that contain a collection of review and research papers focusing on a single topic of current interest. Some of the special issues will be organized by members of our Editorial Board whereas others will be organized by guest editors. For example, this first issue of 2005 has been put together by guest editor Norman C. Waters of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and concerns the discovery of new drugs for the important disease malaria. The next issue of CCHTS will be devoted to regular articles. Whether contributed by authors for a regular issue or as part of a special issue on a hot topic, all papers appearing in this journal will continue to be peer-reviewed. During 2005 eight issues of CCHTS are planned, and this frequency of publication remains the highest in the field of combinatorial chemistry or high throughput screening. Papers published in this journal are 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. In addition, the impact factor of Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening increased to 2.53 this year, which is its highest level ever according to the ISI Journal Citation reports. Therefore, papers published in CCHTS are highly visible to the research community. 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 CCHTS in printed or electronic format. Through a combination of frequent publication and high visibility, Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening remains a unique and essential scientific journal defining the intersection of these two interdependent disciplines. I would like to 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 continuing success of our journal.