Transplant International and COVID-19

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Editorial: changing of the guard at Transplant International

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Average time from submission to first decision is only 27 days

Accepted manuscripts are published online within 28 days

Taking on the duties of editor-in-chief of an established and respected journal comes with its fair share of challenges and responsibilities. The vision of the new editorial board for Transplant International can be summarized in a few keywords: scientific quality, scientific integrity, innovation, outreach, impact. We have strived to build a team of editors with a good balance in gender, geography, age and field of expertise. It is our pride to have near‐perfect gender balance and to have included experts from all six continents in the editorial board. Innovation is brought forward by fresh ideas and new mindsets, which we have translated into a rejuvenated editorial board. Innovation will also be achieved by the progressive integration of new visuals, new article formats and new topics, notably organ reconditioning and regeneration as the new frontiers in our field. This is our challenge, this is our commitment to Transplant International readership.

Thierry Berney, editor-in-chief

The field of organ transplantation as we have known it has evolved and improved, slowly but steadily, over the course of 7 decades. Today, we are on the brink of a revolution, and we can foresee times where end stage failure of an organ will not merely be treated by its surgical replacement with a functioning one. Regenerative medicine, artificial organs, bioengineering and cell reprogramming, to name but a few, hold the promise of a dramatic transformation, by which the scientific community is starting to bring basic knowledge to fulfill the dream of shortening endless waiting lists. Only a true and lasting collaborative oriented research between the transplant organ community and the basic science community will make possible to generate timely and taylored « off the shelf » therapeutic products. It is one major objective for Transplant International to undergo a similar transformation, to stay on the cutting edge of these advances and close the gap between these two basic and applied organ transplant research thus becoming the premier journal publishing in all aspects of organ replacement medicine.

Nuria Montserrat, Deputy Editor-in-Chief

Engagement and focus are essential for both clinical practice and scientific research. The care of transplant patients has continuously evolved over the past decades, thanks to both basic scientific breakthroughs, translational research and improved logistical and treatment strategies. Organ transplantation is a fascinating multidisciplinary field, with involvement of immunologist, geneticists, surgeons, organ specialists, infectiologists, oncologists, pathologists, etc., as well as epidemiologists, statisticians, (bio)informaticians, law makers, ethicists, patients, organ allocation bodies and the general public. This multidisciplinary dimension of organ transplantation attracts enthusiastic people who thrive on national and international collaborations. The positive spirit, courage and commitment, ultimately aimed at giving back a normal life to people with organ failure, are key to the success of the field, to the European Society for Organ Transplantation, and to the success of our journal, Transplant International. We look forward to receiving, reviewing, editing and disseminating your contributions to this better future. 

Maarten Naesens, Deputy Editor-in-Chief

From day 1, I found transplantation to be a fascinating field with such an overwhelming and immediate impact on patients lives. It is a privilege to contribute and serve, both as a clinician and scientist in a discipline, in which science and advancement are so intimately interconnected with the daily practice. While the field has matured and the excitement over the early achievments has faded, we are now entereing an era where transplantation is becoming a motor for advancement a second time. The evolution of extracorporal machine perfusion and other advanced preservation technologies open the doors towards organ assessment, treatment, regeneration, gene modification, immunomodulation, prolonged storage and others. With these technologies progressing, transplantation is re-emerging as a field that realized a medical revolution and resurrects as a thriving field in the interspace between tissue engineering, artificial organs and transplantation. ESOT has undergone a massive change over the past decade and fully adopted its focus and structure to serve this change.  Transplant International is our journal and in this spirit, we aim to nurture and promote it as the leading journal of our days.

Stefan Schneeberger, Deputy Editor-in-Chief 

Good science cannot happen without good methodological choices. As we have entered the era of mass information, the choice of techniques that guide researchers to study results, has become increasingly important. Contemporary data sets are often large and structurally complex. They typically necessitate methods that rely on computationally intensive analysis approaches that remain methodological black boxes to the end user. Contemporary scientific studies therefore require, ever more so, a clear documentation of analysis methods in applied settings, a careful investigation of the results provided by these methods, and a thorough discussion of their limitations. In addition, applied researchers should invest in understanding and applying novel analysis methods, which can substantially improve the quality of their results. These practices are necessary to guarantee quality, integrity, and reproducibility, which are the cornerstones of scientific research.

Thomas Neyens, Statistical Editor

The way you present your research matters! Our Transplant International social media presence aims to spread knowledge, communicate in a plain and easily accessible way, to foster new ideas for collaborations and drive patient and public involvement. Impressions, shares and reposts of our journal output increases downloads and Altmetrics, the benchmark for online research attention. This is proved to also positively affect the citation counts and ultimately the impact factor, the current most used and recognised measure for a journal’s success. We have strived to build a joint presence with the European Society for Organ Transplantation e-learning platform, Transplant Live. Education never stops and as an ongoing journey, we bring this innovation forward by fresh content continuously being developed via alternative formats, as webinars, video-lectures and CME accredited quizzes. This is our challenge, this is our commitment to Transplant International readership.

Maria Irene Bellini, Social Media Editor