Biophysical Reviews—A call to young biophysicists

This Editorial for Volume 13, Issue 3 of Biophysical Reviews begins with a summary of the Issue contents. This is then followed by a discussion of some additional matters important to the journal. In particular, this Editorial offers some thoughts as to what constitutes a good scientific Commentary before announcing the call for nominations for the ‘The 2022 Michèle Auger Award for Young Scientists’ Independent Research’.     

Biophysical Reviews— 2021, the year that was

The current issue (volume 13 issue 6, 2021) is a Special Issue jointly dedicated to scientific content presented at the 20th triennial IUPAB Congress that was held in conjunction with both the 45th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society (Sociedade Brasileira de Biofísica - SBBf) and the 50th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Sociedade Brasileira de Bioquímica e Biologia Molecular – SBBq). In addition to describing the scientific and nonscientific content arising from the meeting this sub-editorial also provides a look back at some of the high points for Biophysical Reviews in the year 2021 before going on to describe a number of matters of interest to readers of the journal in relation to the coming year of 2022.

This Editorial marks the last issue for the journal to be published in 2021 – a year that has been characterized by a mixture of hardship, frustration, and of late, (possibly) a slowly developing cautious optimism in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last 2 years, the journal has had to rapidly adapt to suddenly altered plans of contributors, as the publication of scientific reviews and organization of conference-based special issues has necessarily taken a back seat to the realities of altered work practices and, in some cases, changed life and career plans. One such major change was directly concerned with the subject of this special issue (SI) on the scientific content associated with the 20th Congress of the IUPAB (International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics) conducted in concert with the 45th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society (SBBf) and the 50th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biochemical and Molecular Biology Society (SBBq) (Itri et al. 2021). After discussing a few notable features of the SI, this editorial will introduce important developments occurring with the journal that relate to new feature commentaries and Institutional access arrangements. This Editorial will then close with a look back at some of the standout articles of 2021.     

Biophysical reviews: call for nominations for the 2023 Michèle Auger Award

This Editorial for Issue 3 (Vol. 14 2022) of Biophysical Reviews first describes the Issue’s contents (five commentaries/editorials within the front matter and seven review/letter articles appearing within the main body) before going on to discuss a number of matters of potential importance to the journal and its readers. Amongst this second tranche of content is the opening of the call for nominations for the 2023 Michèle Auger Award for Young Scientists’ Independent Research.

Created in 2009, Biophysical Reviews is the flagship journal of IUPAB, the International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB 2022). Each of the journal’s six issues per year are divided into a front section, dealing with journal process and points of interest to biophysicists and IUPAB society members, and a main section, that presents scientific Letters and Reviews that are written by recognized experts in the field and are selected with an eye to providing an as wide as possible level of international participation. The first duty of each Issue’s editorial is to provide a precis of both the non-scientific and scientific articles appearing within, and we carry this out forthwith.     

Editorial

As Protist enters its seventh year of publication, we can again look back to a successful year of publishing the most exciting research on our favourate organisms, the protists. Submissions, published printed pages and the impact factor (IF 2002: 2.617; ISI, Philadelphia) are all up from last year and have reached the highest levels since Protist began operation in 1998. To me this shows that research on protists in the twenty-first century is well alive and thriving, and it gives me the opportunity to thank all those involved in the production of a quality journal, namely the Editorial Board, Editorial Office, publisher's staff, expert reviewers, and last but not least all authors, who submit their best work to our journal. In particular, I wish to thank Donald M. Anderson and Egbert Tannich who have resigned from the Editorial Board after four and six years, respectively, of dedicated service to the journal, and I welcome C. Graham Clark and Karen A. Steidinger as new members on the Editorial Board.     

Biophysical Reviews’ “Meet the Councilor”—a profile of Anastasia A. Anashkina

As one of the twelve Councilors of the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics elected in summer 2021, I have been asked to provide this short biographical sketch for the journal readers. I am a new member of the IUPAB Council. I hold a specialist degree in Applied Physics and Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and PhD in Biophysics from Moscow State University. I have spent my entire professional career at Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, where I am currently a senior researcher. I am Associate Professor at the Digital Health Institute of the I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University since 2018, and have trained undergraduate students in structural biology, biophysics, and bioinformatics. In addition, I serve as the Guest Editor of special journal issues of International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Frontiers in Genetics BMC genomics. Now I joined Biophysical Reviews Editorial Board as IUPAB Councilor. I am a Secretary of National Committee of Russian Biophysicists, and have helped to organize scientific conferences and workshops, such as the VI Congress of Russian Biophysicists.

     

Announcing the call for the Special Issue on the 20th International Congress of the International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB)—virtual meeting,October 2021

This Commentary describes a call for submissions for the upcoming Special Issue focused on the science presented at the 20^th IUPAB Congress to be held in conjunction with the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 20^th International IUPAB Congress will take place as a virtual meeting this year from October 4 to 8, 2021. This triennial IUPAB Congress will be held in loose conjunction with the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. To act as a complement to this virtual meeting, the Biophysical Reviews journal will base a Special Issue on the scientific topics of the meeting contributors selected from the range of invited speakers and poster presenters. This Special Issue will also work to highlight the host country’s (Brazil) National Biophysical Society. Finally, this Special Issue will also serve to publish the meeting abstracts in supplemental form.Review articles from IUPAB Congress speakers and poster presenters to the IUPAB Congress and associated conferences (the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Biophysical Society and the 49^th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) are solicited. Similar to the SI based on the 19^th IUPAB Congress held in Edinburgh summarizing Commentaries from session chairs are also requested (Hall and dos Remedios 2017). The Special Issue for the 20^th IUPAB International Congress will be prepared and edited by the current authors (Rosangela Itri, Mauricio Baptista, Richard Garratt, and Antonio Jose Costa-Filho).     

Protist 2000

As Protist enters the year 2000, the third year of its existence, it may be appropriate to briefly evaluate the past and look forward to what readers and authors of the journal can expect in the near future.It is fair to say that editing the journal over the past two years has been an enlightening experience, more work but also more fun than I anticipated. Whatever has been achieved, it would not have been possible without the tremendous support I received from my co-editors, the publisher and his staff and my secretarial office. Of no less importance has been the constructive criticism of fellow protistologists, readers and authors alike.I wish to thank Paul Falkowski, Rick A Firtel, and Frances D Gillin who have resigned from the Editorial Board for all their help in getting the journal started, and I welcome Randall S Alberte, Donald M Anderson, Richard Kessin and Peter Upcroft as new Board members.Protist has rapidly become one of the premium international journals for protist research, its impact factor, to be issued later this year will testify to this. The journal is covered by MEDLINE and a full text (PDF) online version is now available free of charge through the year 2000 on the publisher's Web site (http://www.urbanfischer.de/journals/protist).Protist will continue to publish high quality original work in all areas of protist research using the highest quality reproduction methods available today. In addition the highly successful “Protist News” and “From the Archives” sections for which authors are usually invited, will remain regular features of the journal.Protist in the year 2000 opens a new chapter of protist research. I invite you to join in this as a reader and a contributor.     

A new chapter for a better Bioscience Reports

As Bioscience Reports enters its fifth decade of continuous multidisciplinary life science publishing, here we present a timely overview of the journal. In addition to introducing ourselves and new Associate Editors for 2021, we reflect on the challenges the new Editorial Board has faced and overcome since we took over the editorial leadership in June of 2020, and detail some key strategies on how we plan to encourage more submissions and broader readership for a better and stronger journal in the coming years.     

Announcing the call for the Special Issue on “The Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB) – 2021 Meeting”

This Commentary describes a call for submissions for the upcoming Special Issue focused on the research topics presented at the Australian Society of Biophysics (ASB) in 2020 and 2021. Submissions from past and present ASB members who could not attend these meetings are also welcome as contributions to this special issue.

In 2020, the ASB held its 44^th Annual Conference virtually, enabling joint sessions with the University of California Davis Early Career Researchers, Biophysical Society of Japan, and the New Zealand Section of ASB to take place despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To complement these ASB joint meetings, Biophysical Reviews in partnership with the Australian Society for Biophysics (ASB) will present the second of a series of Special Issues highlighting the activities of a National Biophysical Society. This National Biophysical Society Special Issue series will highlight the activities and showcase the areas of research carried out by its members.Review articles are solicited from speakers and poster presenters of the 44^th and participants at the 45^th ASB annual conferences. Commentaries from session chairs and meeting organisers are also requested. Submissions from those who have had long-standing association with ASB or with knowledge of its history are also most welcome. This Special Issue will be prepared and edited by the above authors.     

The driving forces behind the impressive progression of the journal of cell communication and signaling (JCCS)

The recent increase of the Journal of Cell Signaling and Communication’ 2020 Impact Factor to 5.782, and its growing audience in the scientific community, provides an opportunity to step back and look at different aspects of this indicator’s value. The take home message is that the top-ten major contributions to the 2020 ranking originated from North America and Europe followed by India with a high percentage of CCN-related publications and an excellent proportion of Editorial Board members’ contributions to the Top10 best citations for the 2018–2019 period.     

Meet the IUPAB Councilor—Hans-Joachim Galla

As one of the twelve Councilors, it is my pleasure to provide a short biographical sketch for the readers of Biophys. Rev. and for the members of the Biophysical Societies. I have been a member of the council in the former election period. Moreover, I served since decades in the German Biophysical Society (DGfB) as board member, secretary, vice president, and president. I hold a diploma degree in chemistry as well as PhD from the University of Göttingen. The experimental work for both qualifications has been performed at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen under the guidance of Erich Sackmann and the late Herman Träuble. When E. Sackmann moved to the University of Ulm, I joined his group as a research assistant performing my independent research on structure and dynamics of biological and artificial membranes and qualified for the “habilitation” thesis in Biophysical Chemistry. I have spent a research year at Stanford University supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and after coming back to Germany, I was appointed as a Heisenberg Fellow by the DFG and became Professor in Biophysical Chemistry in the Chemistry Department of the University of Darmstadt. Since 1990, I spent my career at the Institute for Biochemistry of the University of Muenster as full Professor and Director of the institute. I have trained numerous undergraduate, 150 graduate, and postdoctoral students from chemistry, physics, and also pharmacy as well as biology resulting in more than 350 published papers including reviews and book articles in excellent collaboration with colleagues from different academic disciplines in our university and also internationally, e.g., as a guest professor at the Chemistry Department of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing.

     

向本刊2017年度审稿专家致谢

The editorial office of Journal of Chinese Biochemistry and Molecular Biology wishes to give our sincere gratitude to the following reviewers who have provided their valuable reports and detailed comments for our journal during 2017. Your contributions are vital for the ever improving scientific quality of the journal and essential for the development of the journal. Editorial Board of Chinese Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology January,2018     

向本刊2016年度审稿专家致谢

一年一度春来到,金鸡报晓春来早！感谢各位审稿专家2016年的陪伴,是你们在百忙之中的辛苦工作,才有了学报一期期保质保量的出版。《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》送走了2016年12期,迎来了2017年的第1期。2016年我们有许多新的尝试,微信公众号的发布、最新录用栏目的启用、还有特约综述的推出,学报点滴的进步都离不开各位专家的帮助,这是期刊向前的步伐,这是属于你我的荣光！2016年度共有238名审稿专家为我刊审稿,其中审稿3篇以上的被评为优秀审稿专家。祝各位专家新春快乐！ 名单详见pdf。 《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》编辑部 2017年1月     

CONSULTANTS FOR The Western Journal of Medicine

The editors wish to acknowledge with greatest appreciation the services given by the following friends of the journal during 1992. They are not members of the Editorial Board, yet provide immeasurable help to the journal and our readers.     

向本刊2018年度审稿专家致谢

2018年度,共有386位专家为《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》审稿,他们的辛勤劳动保证了学报的学术质量,他们提出的中肯意见帮助了作者提高科研水平和论文写作质量。在此,编辑部谨向所有的审稿专家致以最诚挚的感谢！以下为审稿专家姓名,其中审稿3篇以上的专家被评为优秀审稿专家。 (专家名单详见pdf文件） 《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》编辑部 2019 年1月     

In conversation with the Chief Editor

An interview with Facundo D Batista, The EMBO Journal new Editor‐in‐Chief.

An interview with Facundo D. Batista, The EMBO Journal new Chief Editor. Facundo D. Batista has shaped our understanding of the molecular and cellular biology of B‐cell activation. In 2016, he relocated his lab to Massachusetts General Hospital/M.I.T./Harvard’s Ragon Institute to explore the translational potential of two decades of basic research in B‐cell biology. The interview was conducted by Thiago Carvalho. Thiago Carvalho (TC): What inspired you to pursue a career in science? Facundo D Batista (FDB): I was very inspired by my undergraduate course on molecular biology at the University of Buenos Aires. The course was given for the first time, and we were taught the basic techniques of handling DNA, producing insulin, and so forth. Two professors in the course, Daniel Goldstein and Alberto Kornblihtt, really primed us to open our horizons and encouraged training in centers of excellence abroad. I did not speak any English at all, and applying to graduate school in the United States and doing the GRE was impossible for me. I would not have passed. Then, an opportunity to go to Italy and get experience in institutes that could provide me with better training came up. If I recall correctly, we were the first generation of Argentinian biology graduates—myself, Pablo Pomposiello, and many others—that left Argentina looking for a PhD. In general, people would try for a postdoc.I applied to a PhD program in Italy. I went with an open ticket for a year. If I had not passed the ICGEB/SISSA (Trieste) examination, I had three thousand dollars to travel around, and then I would go back to Argentina. I had never been in Europe before. So, for me it was an experience. What happened was that I was very lucky to be admitted in probably the first generation of this new institution, the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Italy. In three years, I finished my PhD, and then, to be honest, as an Argentinian in Europe, I did not have many postdoctoral funding opportunities either. TC: How did you move from Trieste to Cambridge’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology? FDB: I found Michael Neuberger’s laboratory to be very appealing, and I wrote to Michael. He replied to me, in a letter that I still keep, that—if I was able to obtain a fellowship—he would take me in his laboratory. A wonderful thing about EMBO was that it would recognize the country where you did your PhD when considering postdoctoral fellowship applications, giving me access to this important funding support. ¹ It was the very early days of diversity—the notion that people could be eligible for support based not only on their nationality, but also on their “scientific nationality”. It gave me a unique opportunity. TC: It was also an opportunity to meet another source of inspiration for you, César Milstein FDB: César was not well at the time, he had heart problems. But I met him, and I felt very close because Michael was working with César, and he worked next door. For me, walking in those corridors with César Milstein and several other Nobel Prize winners—you know, Aaron Klug and Max Perutz—it was a dream. I could not believe that you could have lunch with these wonderful people, and they would come and talk to you, not as Dr. Klug or Dr. Milstein, but they would be César, Aaron, and Max. That for me was totally mind‐changing, together with my relationship with Michael, whom I love. They completely changed my perspective on science. TC: What do you remember most about Michael Neuberger as a mentor? FDB: What was incredible about Michael was his clarity. You would present any biological problem to him, and he would crystallize in one sentence what the real question behind it was. He was amazing. Michael would enter into a state of thinking where he would stop looking at you and would start looking up at a wall and would start to concentrate for those 10, 20 minutes that you’d explain the problem. Then, he would come up with critical questions and he would be critical to the bones. I think that that is something that science has lost these days. I think that this notion of going deep into critically asking the right scientific questions has been lost as a tradition. It is something that I try to transmit to my postdocs and PhD students: Scientific criticism is not about personal or emotional evaluation. It is really about trying to nail down what the question is and how a project develops. I think that is what I remember most of Michael, his commitment to the people that worked with him and who surrounded him and that deep thinking and constant challenging about what is the next step. TC: In 2002, you started your laboratory at the London Research Institute FDB: I was at one stage considering staying at the LMB with my independent lab, and César and Michael were very supportive of that. But then came the opportunity to join the LRI—which at the time was still the ICRF. I was the last employee recruited (to the ICRF), and it was wonderful. The notion of changing environments again, changing colleagues. The LMB was not an immunology institute. It was a general research institute and the ICRF at that time was similar, with very little immunology. I have always valued the whole spectrum of biology from mathematical modeling to quantitative biology to biochemistry to technological inputs, to development, and so forth. TC: Your LRI laboratory revealed entirely new aspects of the molecular and cellular biology of B lymphocytes—one was the existence of organized membrane structures reminiscent of the immunological synapse first described in T cells that were crucial for activation. What are the implications of the immunological synapse for B‐cell function? FDB: It was a concept that was resisted by the B‐cell field. The notion at the time was that B cells would get activated by soluble antigens. But if you think about it, that does not make any sense. You will never reach a physiological concentration of a ligand that will allow you to engage a receptor in vivo at a low affinity. So in order to reach that concentration, you need to aggregate antigen on the surface of other cells first. And that makes the whole process much more efficient. It not only localizes the process into lymph nodes or spleens, but it also allows focusing the response into what the arrangement of a membrane is. I was not the first—the notion that antigens are on follicular dendritic cells was well‐established by early experiments. But I think our work transformed the field. A lot of laboratories have incorporated the notion that stimulating cells at the level of membranes changes the way that receptors perceive signals. This does not apply only to the B‐cell receptor, it applies to chemokines too, many of them are also coating the surface of other cells and that helps guide the signals that cells receive.I think that it is an important concept that is likely to be applicable to vaccines. There are several papers now showing that helping to aggregate antigens on the surface of macrophages or dendritic cells makes antigens more potent by driving them more efficiently into where they are used in follicles and lymph nodes. TC: What prompted your pivot to translational research? FDB: I had learned a lot about basic principles of B‐cell biology and antibody responses, but on model antigens. I felt at the time that translating that into humans and trying to understand how vaccines could be improved was an important step. I always like to recognize mentors or people who influenced me and one person who really influenced me in this thinking was Dennis Burton at Scripps. He was very early to incorporate into his HIV vaccine and antibody research people like me or Michelle Nussenzweig that were coming from basic B‐cell immunology to try to help to think about how vaccines can be improved. I decided to take a risk. I left a tenured, core‐funded position at the best institution in Europe to lead the Ragon Institute with Bruce Walker—I am the Associate Director and he is the Director—and brought my years of expertise at the ICGEB, LMB, LRI, and CRICK to a unique environment that is based on translational research. There is the incredible ecosystem of Harvard, MIT, and MGH, and the notion is to incorporate technologies and to incorporate immunology to tackle incredible challenges, like COVID‐19 is today. TC: Are there any major initiatives that you plan to focus on at The EMBO Journal? FDB: One of the things that I would really like to do is to involve the younger generations in the journal. I think that we have an opportunity for direct “translation”. I mean, EMBO has EMBO postdoctoral fellowships and EMBO young investigators, involving early career European scientists, but also scientists across the globe. We are discussing initiatives like, for example, inviting postdocs from different laboratories to present at the editorial meetings. The EMBO Journal has an open‐door policy in terms of people wanting to participate in the editorial meetings.I think that we have amazing scientists around the world that can really bring new views as to where the journal should be going. I feel strongly about that and about keeping a real sense of diversity in the journal, in terms of fields, in terms of gender, in terms of race, in getting people involved from Brazil, getting people involved from China, getting people involved from Japan, from across the globe. EMBO is no longer a European journal. EMBO is a journal whose office faces Europe, but it has a global outlook. TC: Early in their career, many researchers do not feel comfortable engaging with editors FDB: I sent one of my first papers as an independent P.I. to EMBO. That paper was editorially rejected. I replied to that rejection, saying that EMBO should stop publishing just biochemistry, and that they needed to appreciate the importance of quantitative cell biology. The paper was ultimately sent to review and accepted. What was also very positive was that a later review of the scope of The EMBO Journal came to a similar conclusion. That resulted in my appointment to the editorial advisory board of The EMBO Journal (I was not an EMBO member at the time). The positive message is that the journal very much welcomed receiving feedback. That was what made me like the journal. I felt that the journal was ready to listen, to change.This is not my journal. It is the community’s journal. I am just playing a role, putting in some time and effort. There are a lot of things that I do not see and other young people could see, and I am looking for inspiration there, to listen and translate those things into good policies for the journal. I think that this is important and I think that this is at the basis of what I want to be as a chief editor.     

After the year of the dumpster fire

2020 has been one of the craziest and strangest years we have lived through. Now that it’s over, it’s an opportunity to show gratitude for all the good things. Subject Categories: S&S: History & Philosophy of Science

I moved to New York City the year of the attacks on September 11, 2001, one of the bleakest moments in the history of the United States. I was also in New York City when Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012. Luckily, much fewer people died due to the storm, but it was incredibly disruptive to many scientists in the affected area—my laboratory had to move four times over a period of 6 years in the storm’s aftermath. These were awful, tragic events, but 2020 may go down in the record books as one of the most stressful and crazy years in modern times. Not to be outdone, 2021 has started terribly as well with COVID‐19 still ravaging the world and an attack on the US Capitol, something I thought I’d never see in my lifetime. The unnecessary deaths and the damage to America’s “House of the People” were heartbreaking.While these events were surely awful, nothing will be as crushing as the deaths of family members, close friends, and the children of friends; perhaps, it is these experiences—and the death of a beloved dog—that prepared me for this year and made me grateful, maybe even more than usual, for what I have. But in the age of a pandemic, what am I particularly grateful for?I''m ridiculously grateful to have a job, a roof over my head, and food security. The older I get, the more I see illness and injury affect my colleagues, family, and friends, I increasingly appreciate my good health. I am grateful for Zoom (no, I have no investment in Zoom)—not for the innumerable seminars or meetings I have attended, but for the happy hours that helped to keep me sane during the lockdown. Some of these were with my laboratory, others with friends or colleagues, sometimes spread over nine time zones. Speaking of which, I’m also grateful for getting a more powerful router for the home office.I''m immeasurably grateful to be a scientist, as it allows me to satisfy my curiosity. While not a year‐round activity, it is immensely gratifying to be able to go to my laboratory, set up experiments, and watch the results coming in. Teaching and learning from students is an incredible privilege and educating the next generation of scientists how to set up a PCR or run a protein gel can, as a well‐known lifestyle guru might say, spark serious joy. For this reason, I’m eternally grateful to my trainees; their endless curiosity, persistence, and energy makes showing up to the laboratory a pleasure. My dear friend Randy Hampton recently told me he received a student evaluation, thanking him for telling his virtually taught class that the opportunity to educate and to be educated is something worth being grateful for, a sentiment I passed onto a group of students I taught this past fall. I believe they, too, were grateful.While all of the above things focus on my own life, there are much broader things. For one, I am so grateful to all of those around the globe who wear masks and keep their distance and thereby keep themselves and others safe. I am grateful for the election of an American president who proudly wears a mask—often quite stylishly with his trademark Ray‐Ban Aviators—and has made fighting the COVID‐19 pandemic his top priority. President Biden''s decision to ramp up vaccine production and distribution, along with his federal mask mandate, will save lives, hopefully not just in the United States but worldwide.This Gen‐X‐er is also especially grateful to the citizens of Generations Y and Z around the world for fighting for social justice; I am hopeful that the Black Lives Matter movement has got traction and that we may finally see real change in how communities of color are treated. I have been heartened to see that in my adopted home state of New York, our local politicians ensure that communities that have been historically underserved are prioritized for COVID‐19 testing and vaccinations. Along these lines, I am also incredibly encouraged by the election of the first woman who also happens to be of African and Asian heritage to the office of vice president. Times are a changin''...While it is difficult to choose one, top thing to be grateful for, I would personally go for science. I am stoked that, faced with a global crisis, science came to the rescue, as it often has in the past. If I had to find a silver lining in COVID‐19—albeit it would be for the darkest of clouds—I am grateful for all of our colleagues, who despite their usual arguing, quickly and effectively developed tests, provided advice, epidemiological data and a better understanding of the virus and its mode of infection, and ultimately developed therapies and vaccines to save lives. The same can be said for the biotech and pharmaceutical industry that, notwithstanding its often‐noted faults, has been instrumental in developing, testing and mass‐producing efficient and safe vaccines in blistering, record time. Needless to say, I have also much gratitude to all of the scientists and regulators at the FDA and elsewhere who work hard to make life as we once knew it come back to us, hopefully in the near future.Once again, thank you for everything, Science.