G&D vignettes

  1. Kenneth S. Zaret
  1. Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Epigenetics Institute, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
  1. Corresponding author: zaret{at}pennmedicine.upenn.edu

This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.

Most readers of Genes & Development today may not appreciate that the birth of the journal, in 1987, was an effort for scientists to take control over editorial decisions and publishing at the highest levels. At the time, Cell, Science, and Nature each used a professional editorial staff and had not yet metastasized into innumerable specialty journals. Few nonprofit alternatives existed for submitting a full-length study in molecular biology that aimed for the highest levels of science publishing. This is not to disparage society journals, as I was an Editor of two of them, Molecular and Cellular Biology in the 1990s and Development in the 2000s, and worked hard to promote journal quality. The European Molecular Biology Organization started The EMBO Journal, run by scientists, in 1982, and it quickly emerged as a high-level publishing alternative. We in the States needed our own, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory stepped in, creating G&D, with its trademark ampersand linking Genes to Development. Terri Grodzicker, famous for her work in SV40 and adenovirus gene control, became G&D Editor in 1989, after the unfortunate passing of founding editor Steve Prentis and a period when Mike Mathews took the reins. Terri continued as Editor for over 30 years, creating a home for the best work.

G&D’s place in history

Back in the mid–late 1980s, even with the addition of G&D, venue choices were limited. In 1988, G&D published the first paper from my fledgling lab, with Terri managing the manuscript. My lab worked hard to establish ourselves in the emerging field of tissue-specific gene expression. I had completed a postdoctoral position with Keith Yamamoto at UCSF, working on steroid hormone regulation in mammalian cells and mice, and started my lab in January 1986. We grew bacteriophage λ clones of the mouse albumin locus that …

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