We would like to extend a warm welcome to our new Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Thomas Brand, who has taken over the editorial leadership of the Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease (JCDD, ISSN: 2308-3425), starting from 13 June 2023.

Name: Prof. Dr. Thomas Brand
Homepage: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/t.brand
Affiliation: National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Hammersmith Campus, London W12 0NN, UK
Interests: heart development; cardiac pacemaker development and function; Popeye genes, cAMP signaling

Prof. Dr. Brand was recruited as a professor and chair of Developmental Dynamics in October 2009 from the University of Würzburg, Germany, where he was a professor of molecular developmental biology and head of a working group in cardiac developmental biology since 2004. Between 1994 and 2004, he was a group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Braunschweig, Germany. He did his postdoctoral training from 1991 to 1994 at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, U.S.A. For his Ph.D. thesis from 1988 to 1990, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Physiological and Clinical Research in Bad Nauheim, Germany. From 1980 to 1987, he studied biology at the University of Bielefeld, Germany.

Prof. Dr. Brand's research initially focused on cardiac development. He was interested in the development of the proepicardium, an embryonic structure that develops into the epicardium and gives rise to cells forming the interstitium and the coronary vasculature. He also worked on the signaling processes involved in left–right asymmetry and the early formation of the embryonic heart. In recent years, he has become interested in a class of membrane proteins, the Popeye proteins, which are strongly expressed in the heart and skeletal muscle and are involved in cyclic nucleotide signaling and the modulation of cardiac pacemaker activity.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Thomas Brand, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to become its Editor-in-Chief?

First, I’d like to express my gratitude to my predecessor Prof. Andy Wessels. I would like to thank him for his efforts to develop JCDD into the excellent journal it has become. My initial contact with the journal was by acting as a Guest Editor for several Special Issues (SI). I found it to be extremely easy to work with the excellent editorial team of JCDD, which handled the editorial work with great care and enthusiasm with an eye for detail. They always made it easy to become a Guest Editor and only contacted me when it was required. Thus, when Prof. Wessels asked me to join JCDD as an Associate Editor, I happily agreed. I had the task of looking after the development of the SIs, which have always been an important part of JCDD. I started several SI projects with different colleagues and reviewed those suggested by others. While the journal initially mainly served the Cardiac Development Community, it has now significantly broadened its focus and includes, for example, clinical cardiology, and consists of eleven Sections in total. I think that leading such an excellent journal, which encompasses nearly the entire cardiovascular field, is a great task, and I am looking forward to this exciting opportunity.

2. What are your plans and vision for the journal?

JCDD is a unique journal, in that it has the words “development” and “disease” in its title and thus it aims at both normal heart development and disease processes. Heart development not only means cardiac development in the embryo, but also the role of the different cell lineages that make up the heart and their fate in disease. It involves the maturation processes of the heart during postnatal life, which will determine how myocytes react to injury, and even includes degenerative processes during aging of the heart. Cardiovascular disease is an even larger topic and includes both pediatric heart disease as well as the many forms of genetic and acquired heart disease, as well as clinical cardiology, which has recently become a major focus of JCDD. The vast array of topics in one journal can only be properly handled by the introduction of substructures. Thus, apart from our excellent Editorial Board (EB), we will also rely on the expertise of Section Editors-in-Chief (SEiC), who will be recruited for each of the different Sections. This will ensure a vital resource of expertise to enable rigorous peer review to allow the publication of excellent manuscripts with high impact. This journal will soon celebrate its 10^th birthday, and there are already several 10^th Anniversary SIs announced on the JCDD website. While SIs, which are often proposed by our Guest Editors, will remain an important element of JCDD, I especially hope that we will become more attractive as a journal where researchers will choose to publish their original work. I believe that this will be key to further growth of the journal in the future. I hope that our excellent EB will assist me in attracting manuscripts to our journal or even publish articles themselves in JCDD.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

Cardiovascular science has always been an important research topic, mainly because of the devastating consequences of being born with a dysfunctional heart or developing cardiovascular disease in later life. Making predictions about this research field may require looking through a crystal ball. Scientific history has taught us that there will be quantum leaps that cannot be easily predicted, even a few years before they occur. Think about the advances that became possible with pluripotent stem cells, gene editing or polymerase chain reaction many years back. Novel technologies have a strong impact on the way we do research. Scientific progress is often technology-driven, and I expect this to happen also in the future. Thus, I could simply answer the question by saying: I don’t know, let’s wait and see. However, extrapolating from where we are, I expect that we will soon have a pretty good idea of the different cell lineages present in our heart during development, and of changes in response to acquired or genetically determined heart disease as well. Of course, research will become more and more reliant on big data and on artificial intelligence. It may soon become normal to have a virtual colleague on our side who will help us to write research articles. We might gain a proper understanding of the molecular basis of heart disease. Our enlarging toolbox to model heart disease in a dish with the help of iPSCs, organoids and organ-on-a-chip technology will be of great help in this regard. What is certain is that the future will be exciting.

4. What do you think of the development of open access literature in the publishing field?

To answer this question, I would like to travel back in time, when my first paper ever was published, and I received the glossy preprints with my name on it. It was a glorious feeling and a special moment. I had the feeling that it is great being a scientist and being able to publish work, which might have a lasting impact. I also remember when I had my first journal cover, which I was able to see when I entered the library. This was all a long time ago and publishing research has become very different. I hardly ever go into the library anymore, and nowadays, we can access and read most research articles instantaneously unless they are behind a paywall. Most articles, which we find on PubMed, are accessible from our computer screen. However, this is only true when one is part of a large research organization, but maybe less true for scientists working at a small university or in a developing country. Publishing in an open access journal makes it possible for publicly funded research to become accessible to everybody worldwide. Therefore, it is an important element for the idea of global dissipation of research results and to inform and educate people irrespective of where they live. It is a proper attempt to become inclusive and to involve everybody.

We warmly welcome our new Editor-in-Chief and wish the journal every success in the future.