Eyewitnesses to history and participants as well

Over our term as editors for HEPATOLOGY, we have published over 1,645 original research articles as well as 160 reviews and meeting proceedings. These publications were cited over 32,000 times, and over 5.2 million downloads occurred.

We are grateful to our authors, reviewers, and, especially from my perspective, to our associate editors. The associate editors were comprised of a remarkable group of physician scientists. All of our associate editors, with the exception of Dr. Margaret Koziel, who was replaced by Dr. David Nelson, remained in this position for the entire term. During our tenure, this group of individuals undertook several professional moves, all for promotions, yet managed to maintain their excellent, timely overview of the flow of papers to and through the journal.

During our term, we were privileged to be involved with a rapid evolution in discoveries regarding liver disease. We saw the emergence, in this journal, of descriptions of targeted therapy for hepatocellular cancer, the introduction of new treatments for hepatitis B and C, and new treatments for the complications of cirrhosis. We also saw more individualized medicine in hepatology with tests for interleukin-28B for interferon response and PNPLA3 for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and hepatic fibrosis after liver transplant, as well as the rapid development of applications in the field of stem cell biology to liver disease.

The introduction of Comments From the Editors, suggested by Dr. Greg Gores, and Master's Perspective, suggested by Dr. Saul Karpen, were new additions to the journal, but also ones for which we received many favorable comments. As one of the associate editors said: “This experience validated my feeling that we are members of a great group of very collaborative, smart, engaging, forward-thinking physician scientists,” referring, namely, to you, the world's hepatology community.

Thank you for the privilege of serving you as the editor of HEPATOLOGY over the past 5 years. I look forward to reading about the new developments in our field under the leadership of Dr. Michael Nathanson and his new editorial team.