Editorial

With this issue Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening begins its ninth year of publication. CCHTS continues to publish review articles and original research papers in all areas of combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening. This issue, for example, contains both review articles (see the review by Hsieh, et al., of fast mass spectrometric assays that are being used to enhance the throughput of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics studies) and research papers (see the paper by Allan, et al., describing the development of a new fluorescence-based HTS assay for inhibitors of glycine transporters). Synthetic organic chemistry papers featuring new routes to combinatorial libraries will continue to appear in CCHTS, such as the research paper by Coelho and Sotelo in this issue that describes palladium catalyzed multicomponent reactions leading to the synthesis of pyridazinone libraries. In addition, the development of new HTS assays will be covered; see for example the paper by Han, et al., describing a new peptide chip screening approach for caspase activity. As always, the use of screening assays for applicants such as drug discovery will continue to appear in CCHTS, such as the paper by Wood, et al., that concerns the use of HTS to discover anti-endotoxin agents. As in the past, regular issues will be alternated with special issues focusing on a single topic of current interest. Some of these special issues will be organized by members of our Editorial Board whereas others will be organized by guest editors. For example, the second issue of CCHTS to be published in 2006 has been organized by Dr. Donald Kyle, who is a member of the Editorial Board. Dr. Kyle's special issue will address how to increase the productivity of drug discovery programs, and topics to be covered will include library synthesis strategies based on computational predictions of biological activity, utilization of corporate databases, and comparison of approaches for sequential library screening. Whether appearing in a special issue addressing a hot topic or in a regular issue, all papers published in CCHTS will continue to be peer-reviewed. In 2005, eight issues of CCHTS were published, and this frequency of publication was the highest of any journal in the field of combinatorial chemistry or high throughput screening. Due to the large number of manuscripts in the publication queue, the number of issues of CCHTS planned for 2006 will be increased to ten. Therefore, CCHTS will set a new standard this year as it continues to be the publication leader in this field. Papers published in CCHTS are abstracted and indexed by the major services including Chemical Abstracts, BIOSIS, CAB Abstracts, EMBASE, BIOBASE, Science Citation Index-Expanded, MEDLINE, and Current Contents (Life Sciences). 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. Manuscripts may be submitted in print or electronic format, and our readers and subscribers will continue to be able to obtain CCHTS in printed or electronic format. Through the 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 the Editorial Board, the Regional Editors, the guest editors, the authors, and of course you, the readers, for the continuing success of our journal.