Another Step Forward to the understanding of Biological Signaling Networks.

In this editorial I briefly review the new JCCS scientific directions that have emerged from the complicated situations created by the pandemics of COVID- 19, and by the internal audit of both Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling and International CCN Society, that were initiated since my proposal at the 2019 International Workshop on the CCN family of genes.I also welcome the distinguished members of our renewed JCCS Editorial and congratulate all those who have in many different ways participated to the consolidation of the 2021 JCCS Impact Factor attaining 5.908.

The present time

This issue will be the time to provide an update on the new scientific orientations and openings of both the Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling and International CCN Society that I have elicited over quite a few years and that were officially announced in 2019 on the occasion of the 10th International Workshop on the CCN family of genes.

On the JCCS front, our new cover symbolizes our journey towards an illuminated future.

In an attempt to reinvigorate our publishing model, we have chosen to both expand and reinforce our readership, in close coordination with the revamping of the ICCNS presented below, and direct our efforts to either new areas of interest or topics that were not sufficiently represented in our wealth of expertise.

Our main goal is to be recognized as a dependable messenger of the considerable progress that have been made in the last decade in the fields of intercellular signaling as well as communication of cells, tissues and organs with their environment at large.

The present accomplishments of JCCS are quite satisfactory. Aside from the IF consolidation to 5.908 (based on 2021’ citations of manuscripts published in 2020 and 2019), I believe, as I previously strongly advocated (B. Perbal 2021), that the large increase in JCCS readership is a strong unbiased sign of the interest that our publications trigger and of our scientific recognition within the scientific community. Indeed, the values communicated by our publisher indicated a 50% increase in the number of downloads during 2021.

However, we must consider these values with circumspection and humbleness (Perbal 2021) and put all our efforts towards reaching more layers of the scientific community dealing with biological communication and signaling.

The reorganizations

The recent change of Editor in Chief has crystallized the ongoing critical examination of the JCCS editorial board and scientific options initiated over the few last years.

As a consequence, several colleagues whose scientific expertise had been unanimously recognized in their fields, were invited to join and expand the already extended expertise range of our editorial board members.

It is an honor for us to acknowledge again several new Associate Editors and members of the Editorial board who expressed their willingness to come on board with us.

Thanks to the wide skills of our editorial board members, we believe that we have a gem in hand. If every member would agree to participate in the growing success of JCCS and support its diffusion and spread the word about the scientific reliability of JCCS, our journal should reach new potential targets and welcome authors to join us.

We strongly condemn any kind of manuscript blind rejection based on geographical origin. We have previously shown that we offered to countries under economic development possibilities to submit their manuscripts.

We wish to reiterate that all manuscripts submitted in compliance with the new JCCS instructions to authors, including the justified choice of a thematic section and production of a graphical abstract, at least upon revision’s stage, will be thoroughly examined, according to our code of conduct.

The near future

As I mentioned above, the ICCNS also needed to be revamped, in close interactive cooperation with the reorganization of JCCS.

We indeed believe that both JCCS and the ICCNS are scientifically cross fertilizing, as shown by the publication of many Bits and Bytes updates, that were simultaneously published in JCCS and on the CCN society website, but also by the organization of JCCS-sponsored International Workshops on the CCN family of genes which provided unique opportunities to researchers working in the CCN field to meet and exchange ideas with colleagues from other fields.

Recent results obtained with biological components sharing functional similarities with the CCN proteins, raised the possibility that the concept of a Cellular Communication Network factors, constituting the basis for the official nomenclature of the CCN proteins (Perbal et al. 2018) might also apply to other families of proteins interacting with the CCN proteins through cross-regulated multiplayer complex pathways (manuscript in preparation and Perbal 2019).

For technical reasons beyond of our control, the ICCNS website had not been operative for a few months at the beginning of 2022. Now that the issues have been resolved, the website is now back on line and functional.

Its very early presentation style will be modified and modernized, soon after the 11th workshop on the CCN family of Genes will be held.

After a long incubation period, that was frequently interrupted by the first COVID-19 pandemic events and subsequent confinements, I could finally propose the creation of a new non-profit scientific society (ARBIOCOM) whose major aim is to permit joint meetings, and foster scientific live exchange, between members of societies interested in the thematics of cell signaling and cell communication at large, with the strong guaranty that all of them would keep their original identity. A summary of our first step towards these goals is presented on the CCN society website.

As one of the founding members of the ARBIOCOM projects, the International CCN society has proposed a wide opening of our next International Workshop on the CCN family of Genes in Nice (20–24 October 2022) to any junior or senior researcher interested in Cell Communication and Signaling to participate, at the CCN members’ rate to mixed sessions in which scientists from different horizons will be given the possibility to share views and projects.

A report on the CCN workshop, with abstracts of the presentations, will be published shortly after the meeting and indexed on PubMed.