Editorial for AVCC relaunch issue.

Abstract

In 1990, when Antiviral Chemistry and Chemotherapy was originally launched, the Editors recognised the challenges and the promises of a research field that was rapidly expanding. With this in mind, they decided to create a new journal that could be ‘at the centre of this excitement’. Since then, the antiviral research field has grown significantly, fostering some remarkable successes along the way: HAART has transformed a HIV infection from an almost certain death sentence into a manageable disease and a cure for all HCV-infected patients is within our grasp. Yet, many challenges still remain. Emerging and re-emerging viruses like Zika or Cikungunya have often appeared in the mainstream news in the last few years, while no antiviral treatments for viral infections such as Dengue are yet available. For this reason, we believe the new Antiviral Chemistry and Chemotherapy, relaunched with this issue, has still an important role to play by supporting researchers in sharing their work and ideas in a research field that is still exciting as it was almost three decades ago. Our renewed journal will focus entirely on publishing excellent, reproducible science. This is our most important aim. We recognise that antiviral research is a highly multidisciplinary field and we welcome papers from all scientific backgrounds, from chemistry to basic virology. What we can offer is a fast and competent peer review, and a fast publication, thanks to an incredibly talented group of Editors and an enthusiastic Editorial Board. In addition to original research papers, we will encourage submission of review articles and pointers. We will also regularly publish special issues completely dedicated to particularly interesting and timely topics. Finally, it is important to point out that Antiviral Chemistry and Chemotherapy is now an Open Access journal. We strongly believe that this is the best publishing method for a journal that has the ambition of becoming again an important reference point in the antiviral field. Open Access also offers clear benefits to our authors. For example, it has been suggested that openly accessible papers are cited more frequently than papers published on subscription journals. Furthermore, several funding bodies now require that the results obtained from the research they supported should be publicly available. In conclusion, Antiviral Chemistry and Chemotherapy is ready to start again and to regain its role in assisting fellow scientist in spreading their ideas and novel scientific results. We have plenty to offer to the antiviral community and we invite you to be part of this new exciting endeavour.